


Prompt Swap with Agent Carter

by all_soul



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aunt Peggy Carter, Bisexual Peggy Carter, Cartinelli - Freeform, Edwin Jarvis - Freeform, F/F, First Kiss, First Meetings, First Time, Fluff, Howard Stark - Freeform, Lesbian Angie Martinelli, Lesbians, Light Angst, Lipstick, Marriage Proposal, Mildly Dubious Consent, My First Smut, Prompt Fic, Smut, angie is a little shit, dottie underwood - Freeform, howard being a trash father, howard is chaotic, peggy carter/angie martinelli - Freeform, peggy carter/dottie underwood - Freeform, that last one is only hinted, wlw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:08:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 35
Words: 32,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25212940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/all_soul/pseuds/all_soul
Summary: fuck_the_birds (formerly be_the_good_guys) and I have taken to swapping prompts. We're given a writing prompt, and we trade off picking a word to incorporate in the drabble along with it.Mostly Cartinelli, but also just fun nonsense with our favorite vintage idiots
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Angie Martinelli
Comments: 25
Kudos: 60





	1. "Who did this to you?"

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Character A tilting Character B’s chin up to get a better look at their face and the evidence of the fight. A delicately thumbs away the streak of blood by B’s mouth, saying nothing as they examine it. After a brief pause, B’s heart skips a nervous beat as A looks them dead in the eyes. Their voice is quiet and tense, their anger barely restrained.
> 
> “Who did this to you?”
> 
> (From Tumblr user whumpster-dumpster)

Coming home late was hardly worrisome in the penthouse Peggy and Angie shared. Really, it was more concerning if they both made it back on time, so they took up their customary positions in the living room near the entrance way - Peggy in the armchair, Angie stretched out across the opposite couch - and waited. Although largely unspoken, there was the unmistakable breaking of tension when a key slotted into the lock and the sound of shoes clattering onto the wooden floor welcomed the delayed woman home.

However unspoken though, Peggy worried for Angie. Her gaze flicked up from her book to the ornate grandfather clock so often she spent more time finding her most recent line than actually reading. It was close to midnight, and Angie had still not returned.

Something heavy thudded against the door, and Peggy shut her book. She hurried over and peered through the peephole. For a moment she saw nothing - pranksters, she supposed - but then she caught a glimpse of sandy hair and a turquoise hat, slowly sinking below the peephole.

She had hardly yanked open the door when a half-conscious Angie slumped into her arms. Peggy’s stomach dropped.

“Angie, what on Earth-” She carefully shifted an arm under Angie’s and hauled her into the living room, leaving the door wide open as her eyes ran over her prone friend. Every alarm in her body went off like a thousand electric shocks, telling her to  _ move, move, move, _ but Angie was growing weaker by the second and it was all Peggy could do to lay her down on the couch before she collapsed.

Peggy quickly lifted Angie’s legs up onto the couch and looked her over for injuries. An angry purple-red bruise stained her left cheek, and something dark and thick pooled at the corner of her mouth.

“Angie- Angie, darling, wake up.” She brushed some stray hair from Angie’s forehead and found yet another dark bruise along her hairline.

“Hm-” Angie hummed and tried to pry her eyes open, but they stuck together as if glued shut- like she was drugged.

Rage bubbled in Peggy’s stomach like poison. Her blood ran hot.

“Angie.” Peggy raised a gentle thumb to the drying blood streaking down Angie’s chin, voice as soft as she could manage, but so brittle it might snap in half. “Who did this to you?”


	2. "Just pound the nail into the wall"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Imagine your OTP buying a house together but getting surprised by the amount of work that still has to be done. Good thing they can work together perfectly... right?  
> "Just pound the nail into the wall."  
> "I'll pound you against a wall."
> 
> {From Tumblr user letsimagineotps}

“Have you really never wallpapered a flat before?”

Angie huffed. She sat on her knees at the corner of the living room, hammer in hand, shaking out her throbbing fingers. She really would've assumed Howard Stark had better taste, but the wallpaper in the penthouse was ancient. It had to go - she and Peggy knew it the moment they stepped inside.

Jarvis offered to call someone, of course, but  _ Oh, it’s not a big deal, Mr. Jarvis, Angie and I can do it ourselves. We both have Friday off anyhow. _ Peggy’s independence was one of the best, and one of the worst things about her.

“Can’t say that I have. When in the world would you have, English?”

“It’s hardly different from tacking down weather-proofing tarps, all you have to do is nail it in.”

Angie stuck her sore thumb in her mouth and looked up at Peggy, who was regarding her with a raised brow, hands on her hips. It should be awfully condescending, but Peggy had a way of injecting genuine curiosity in places it had no business being. She also wore army-issued undergarments when she did housework, A.K.A., a pair of fitted slacks and a tank top that left very little to the imagination, granting an unfettered view of the defined hollow of her neck, down into the divot between her collarbones.

“I’ll nail  _ you _ into the wall,” Angie muttered, pulling her thumb out with a pop.

“You’ll  _ what? _ ”


	3. "Sorry I'm late"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Person A, noticeably disheveled as they enter the room: Sorry I’m late, I was doing stuff  
> Person B, also disheveled and grinning smugly: I’m stuff

“You did say noon, Sir?” Jarvis said, glancing warily at Howard.

“Lunchtime ain’t changed since the war, to my knowledge, pal,” he replied, flicking down his sunglasses and regarding Jarvis with his typical lackadaisical grin.

“Of course not, Sir, but- are you sure you reminded Miss Carter that you were hosting today?” Jarvis glanced down at his watch. In all his time working with Peggy, he had never known her to be late. In fact, tardiness seemed to be a rather sore spot for her - if the rather prolonged haranguing Chief Sousa received the last time he got caught in traffic had anything to say about it. But no, he had not read incorrectly: for the first time in his recollection, she was ten minutes late.

“Ought we to check in on her?”

“Nah. Jarvis, anyone ever tell you you worry too much?”

“As I understand it, Sir, that is one of my better qualities.”

“So sorry,” came Peggy’s voice.

Jarvis looked up and found the woman herself striding through the glass doors, patting her hair down, and- was it his imagination, or was she flushed?

“Is everything alright, Miss Carter?” he asked.

“Yes, of course, everything’s fine,” she said hurriedly. She flashed a smile at him, then at Howard, then took a seat at the lunch table. She sat still for a moment. Adjusted the collar of her blouse. She sat straighter than usual, hands clasped tightly in her lap.

“Are you sure? Was there trouble on your way?”

“Not at all, Mister Jarvis, I was-” Peggy cleared her throat. “I simply lost track of time, had some filing to do.”

“I’m ‘filing,’” came a second voice.

Peggy went red.

Jarvis looked back toward the doors and saw Miss Martinelli stepping out onto the patio, a smug smile on her face and a vibrant red smudge mark on her jaw. She’d opted for a low-cut sundress today, revealing a peppering of fresh pink marks all across her collarbones, disappearing under the dress’s neckline on both sides.

He glanced back and forth between Peggy and Miss Martinelli, who seemed to be having a very heated conversation with just their eyes, more and more embarrassment heating his chest by the second.

Howard burst out laughing.


	4. "Stay awake"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: blood
> 
> Prompt:
> 
> “When help is a few hours away and Character B has to stay awake, Character A rambles loudly about random stuff, trying not to break down and cry and to keep them awake”

Angie really hated taking out the trash. It was hardly the most difficult thing she was tasked with at the automat, but for as long as she could remember she’d been hyper-sensitive to smell. Got headaches easily. The scent of gasoline, although overpowering, relaxed her, so when the family cars needed tuning up, she was the girl for the job. The smell of trash, however, was not quite so soothing.

The rain made the job worse. Sure she’d only be outside for a second, but her hair would be wet for at least an hour and her shoes would squelch all the way back to the Griffith; and she was all too familiar with Ms. Fry’s wet-shoes-above-the-lobby scowl. She was not in the mood today.

Nor was she in the mood to find a distinctly not-trash-bag-shaped figure slumped beside the dumpsters.

Angie sighed and hoisted her trash back over her head in a sad attempt to shield herself from the rain as she tried to make out the person leaning against the wall. “Come on out, we’re closin’ soon so ya’ might as well skedaddle-”

The stranger crumpled to the ground.

Angie dropped the bag with a splash and hurried over, ignoring the jolt of caution in her stomach. She fell to her knees beside them and-

“Peggy?”

Peggy lay groaning, holding a hand to a wound in her lower abdomen, suit soaking through with rainwater. And something darker.

“Peggy, what the heck happened to you?” Angie started, head spinning, chest filling with fear as the dark something spread across the thick fabric of Peggy’s jacket and Peggy’s hand grew slack over it. Her fingers came away red. The only sign she was still awake was the continuous twitch of her face as it was pelted with rain drops, and her short, shallow breaths.

“God, Peg,  _ Peg _ , stay with me- did you call for help? How long you been out here?”

Peggy groaned, eyes screwed shut, her fingers slowly reaching for Angie’s.

Angie took her hand and squeezed it. “What do you need, what can I do?”

“Pressure-” Peggy gasped, guiding Angie’s hand to the stain on her jacket. “Keep pressure on it-”

Angie nodded, and pressed hard on the spot, fresh fear pumping through her veins with Peggy’s following cry.

“I- I gotta keep you talking, English, I took a nursing class in ‘43, and they said that losing too much blood gets a lot worse if you fall asleep, so stay with me,” Angie said, desperately holding one hand over Peggy’s wound and gripping her hand with the other. Peggy was already white as a sheet, her forehead sweaty, shivering from the cold. “Do you think you can move? We should get you inside, you can’t just lie out here in the rain-”

Peggy released Angie’s hand and grasped her forearm, head falling back. “Y-yes, inside-”

Angie nodded. She steeled herself, and slowly released the pressure on Peggy’s wound. She shifted her hand under Peggy’s left arm and gave her a slow, gentle tug, inviting her to grip as hard as she needed to.

Peggy’s vice-grip on her forearm got even tighter, and if Angie had the time she might have been impressed by her ability to do so considering the blood loss. Instead, she got to her feet and lifted Peggy up, slinging her arm around her waist and trying to ignore Peggy’s labored breathing against her neck. She maneuvered her to the door and yanked it open, holding it with her foot as she helped Peggy up the single stair and into the short, dank hall that suddenly stretched for miles. Peggy was getting heavier and heavier against her, and Angie threw an awkward arm across Peggy’s shoulders as she guided her into the closest supply closet.

“I think we have some bandages in here, or at least some napkins,” Angie told her, carefully lowering her onto the cool linoleum floor.

Peggy convulsed, and Angie’s stomach twisted in knots. She froze in the doorway until Peggy nodded assuringly, then rushed out into the dining room to find a spare chair cushion.

A customer called out for her, and she dimly told him to shove it before hurrying back to the closet and shutting the door behind her. She flicked on the light and knelt beside Peggy, lifting her shoulders and sliding the cushion beneath her head.

“You need a hospital, Peg-”

Peggy was drifting away again, her head falling back, her breathing slowing.

“ _ Peggy, _ ” Angie said desperately, taking Peggy’s hand and shaking it until her eyes blinked sluggishly open.

“G-get Sousa, c-call the S.S.R., ask for Rose-” Peggy cried out and squeezed Angie’s hand hard.

“Are you sure I should leave you like this, Peg, is- is Jarvis close by?” Angie’s eyes flitted to the door and back to Peggy’s pale face.

“No- Angie, go-” Peggy squeezed Angie’s hand again. She pried her eyes open and, glistening with pained and exhausted tears, they locked on Angie’s. “ _ Go. _ ”

Angie nodded and let go of Peggy’s hand. She glanced back at Peggy, breathing hard on the ground, and bolted from the closet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was thinking on extending this into a longer fic, let me know if you'd like to see it!


	5. "Lipstick. Wherever do you get your ideas."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here's where we started using words to go along with the prompts. It'll look like this:
> 
> Word x Prompt
> 
> Prompt:
> 
> Lipstick x Mad Scientist

Howard inviting Peggy to his lab was hardly a rare occurrence. What set Peggy’s nerves on edge about the invitation was the grin she could hear through the phone. That meant Howard had either made a massive breakthrough that would propel science into a new age, or he’d done something utterly childish and ridiculous. Judging by the manic smile he wore as he opened the door, Peggy guessed it was the latter.

She stepped warily into the lab, eyeing the tables cluttered with short metal tubes, vials, and other miscellaneous instruments.

“What’s this all about, then?” she said, folding her arms. She kept a good couple of feet from the nearest tables. Quite literally anything in Howard’s lab could explode at any moment, and she’d lost too many of her favorite blouses and jackets learning that lesson.

“Relax, Peg, I got something new for you that I think you’ll like,” said Howard, snatching something off the table and holding it out to her.

“Lipstick.” Peggy raised a brow. “Where ever do you get your ideas.”

“Take a look at the side,” he said, rotating the tube so she could read the engraving.  _ 102 SWEET DREAMS. _

“I see you still have all the creativity of a comic book onomatopoeia,” Peggy said airily, taking the lipstick and uncapping it.

“It’s a new gadget. You got a whole femme fatale thing going, why not add the final touch?” Howard said, a devilish smirk spreading across his face.

“Spit it out, Howard.”

“You apply it over your usual color and it won’t affect you - it needs direct skin contact.” His eyebrows knitted together pensively. “It’s laced with a nonlethal toxin, and we don’t want to be finding you passed out in front of your bathroom mirror. So maybe be modest with it. Don’t want any smudging over what you’ve got on.”

Peggy looked at him, nonplused.

“I was hoping you’d figure it out yourself. Sweet dreams, Peg, it puts people to sleep.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Not at all, sweetheart. It’s even scented. With any luck you might even get some action-”

“ _ Howard! _ ”

Howard threw up his hands in surrender. “Hey! It’s been what, three years-”

“I’ll thank you to keep your nose out of any ‘action’ I may or may not be getting, if you wouldn’t mind,” Peggy said, decidingly placing her hands on her hips.

What did Howard know about what went on in the ladies dressing areas anyway? Devoid of privacy as they were, they had some dark corners that some of the slighter nurses fit right into where Peggy could brace a hand on the cool stone and pin an all-too-willing Private Lorraine against the wall. 

She had to admit that making the lipstick in her trademark cherry red was kind. After all, it was the shade peppered across Lorraine’s neck when the changing rooms were empty and Colonel Philips had no use for her. The thought spread an unbidden smirk across her face.

“What?” asked Howard.

“Oh, nothing.”


	6. Safe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Nightmares x Shy proposal

_ “Eight o’clock on the dot, don’t you dare be late.” Peggy’s voice cracked. She stared somewhere out the warped glass, trying valiantly not to cry. _

_ “You know I still don’t know how to dance,” said Steve, voice crackly and distorted through the radio. It wavered every so often as he got further and further away, and every time it brought an identical terrified ache in her chest. _

_ “I’ll show you how. Just be there,” she said desperately. _

_ “We’ll have the band play something slow. I’d hate to step on your-” _

Peggy bolted upright in bed, eyes filled with tears. She blinked against the darkness and tried to clear her head, but her heart pounded and her stomach ached and the blankets were suddenly stifling. The tears began to fall as she kicked them off, and she swung her legs over the side of the bed, breathing hard. Her whole body trembled like a leaf. She was sitting in that freezing mission control room again, powerless, alone-

Something shifted beside her. Someone. Angie rolled over in her sleep. She threw an arm across Peggy’s pillow and the tips of her fingers brushed her back.

Peggy took a shaky breath and looked up at the ceiling. She wiped away the tears and tried to focus on the three gentle fingertips, reaching out for her even in sleep. Angie had always grounded her. The world just never seemed to affect her. Her sunshine smile was impervious to rainy days, her spirit unbreakable regardless of how many rejections she faced. When everything felt heavy, when work was intense and the world felt crushing, Angie pushed it all away. Like a beacon, like a glowing citadel, she radiated  _ space _ . Moments of stillness.

Peggy focused on the stillness. Just closed her eyes and listened to Angie’s steady breathing.

Steve was gone. Yes, she still heard him in her dreams, yes, his case file still sat in a box that she memorized the serial number of, and yes, maybe he would haunt her forever. But in the endless what-if’s and that blinding pressure shoving her back into the past, there was Angie. Still. Safe. Present.

Peggy looked over at the nightstand. At the drawer.

_ Safe. _ Steve wasn’t safe. He never would have been, he was too good to be safe.

Angie was safe. She was good enough to be safe. Maybe it was selfish, but Peggy didn’t think she could handle it if Angie were Steve’s brand of good. Then maybe she’d lose her too.

Her chest flared with heat as if filled with lightning. She would not lose Angie.

She reached over and pulled open the drawer, taking out the small black box within. She flipped open the lid and took out the thin band. The three tiny diamonds glinted subtly in the moonlight.  _ Safe. _ Maybe if Peggy took this leap, if she made it unequivocally clear that she could not lose Angie, that she would sooner die than see her go, they would be safe.

So she twisted on the bed, careful not to jostle the pillow on which Angie’s arm rested. With two fingers, she gently lifted Angie’s hand. Taking a deep, final breath, Peggy slowly pushed the ring onto Angie’s finger. The sight filled her with warmth, and she felt her eyelids growing heavy again. With Angie’s hand in hers, she slid back under the covers and closed her eyes.  _ Safe. _


	7. "A pipe burst"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Water x "Mom says if you blow up the house she's going to put you up for adoption"
> 
> Sorry this one is short :/

“Please don’t tell me you told Anthony that our washing machine is broken,” Peggy said, looking up at Angie in the doorway. They’d agreed to watch Anthony while Howard and Maria took a much needed vacation, which meant letting a child genius loose among their appliances - a situation that Peggy likened to launching a grenade into a lake.

“He would’ve taken apart our toaster again otherwise, besides, kid helped me fix your car last week,” Angie said. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I hoped that after twenty years you’d have learned never to ask that question in the presence of a Stark, darling,” Peggy said gingerly, adjusting her glasses and looking back down at the file she was reviewing.

“Fair point, but hey, he’s excited, and at least he won’t disassemble the TV this time. He might even fix it-”

“Aunt Peg? Auntie Angie?” came Anthony’s voice from downstairs.

Peggy glanced up at Angie with just her eyes. “If he somehow blows up the house, I’m calling Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis. Or bomb control.”

Angie nodded and left the room.

Peggy managed to sign off on a whole one page’s worth of personnel requests before she heard two sets of sheepish footsteps in the hallway.

She looked up to find her wife and godson wearing identical strained smiles. They were completely drenched, and dripping onto her carpet. Anthony slowly shifted the wrench he held in his right hand behind his back.

“What on Earth happened down there?” Peggy leapt out of her chair and took off her glasses, facing down the pair of them with a hand on her hip.

“A pipe burst,” Anthony squeaked out.

Peggy rubbed her forehead. It was going to be a long few weeks.


	8. "Why did you want a child?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Dog x Words as weapons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longer chapters to come, but the first ones are short! They start picking up like two/three chapters from now

Peggy was on fire. Heat tore up through her stomach, and her chest, and it colored her face. She stalked down the office hallway, trailing it in her wake, drawing eyes the way only destruction could.

“Howard Stark, you get out here right now!” she roared, pounding at Howard’s office door.

The door flew open under her fist, and her vision went red at the sight of her friend.

“Peggy, what the hell-”

“How old were you when you lost your parents, Howard?” Peggy said, her voice tempered, but barely.

Howard blanched, blinking at her, aghast.

“How old were you?”

“Fifteen. Peggy, what’s this about-”

“Oh don’t pretend not to understand what this is about! You know exactly how it feels to lose your parents, so why on Earth are you okay with inflicting that upon your own son! He’s already lost you and you aren’t even dead, although I wouldn’t be surprised if you were to him!” Peggy’s fists curled tighter at her sides, her eyes wide and furious.

Several agents stared open-mouthed, and those who had experienced Director Carter’s rage before got up and left all together.

“Peggy, you gotta understand, you of all people know that sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the sake of progress-”

“Why did you want a child if you didn’t plan on caring for him?” Peggy said, hands shaking.

“He’s my son, Peg, and I love him, but-”

“There are no buts around this, Howard. If you wanted a convenient, docile escape from the rest of the world to come home to, a pair of smart, innocent, eyes and an excitable dependant to tug at your sleeve at the end of the day, then you should have gotten a dog, because no child deserves to be neglected like you neglect Anthony. I know that you push him because you want a successor, a young, brilliant addition to the Stark legacy, but you can’t seem to grasp the difference between a child and a dancing monkey. If you want to apologize to him, he’ll be with Angie and I. Don’t come over unless you plan on seriously reevaluating your priorities.”

And with that, Peggy turned on her heel and stormed out of the room.


	9. "I thought you were going sober"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Storm x Numbing Pain
> 
> TW: alcoholism

“You didn’t have to come, you know.”

“Yes, I did.” Peggy maneuvered into a chair opposite her godson. It was getting harder to come up to visit since she hit the seventy-year mark, but it was December 17th, 1991, and Howard and Maria Stark had been found in a crushed car off an interstate highway. It had been raining that night. The going theory was that the car skidded on the slick asphalt and they’d lost control.

Anthony stared somewhere to Peggy’s right, a glass of scotch held loosely in his hand, eyes glazed. There were only drops left in the decanter beside him, and the glimmering streaks down the glass suggested that it had been full up until recently.

“I thought you were going sober,” she said carefully.

Anthony didn’t reply. Just swirled the scotch slowly, around and around. Traces of stubble patched his chin, and his eyes wouldn’t focus. Wouldn’t meet hers.

“Why’re you even here,” he asked, voice brittle, still staring at the same spot on the floor. “Thought you and my dad didn’t get along anymore.”

“We had our differences, but he was my closest friend for a long time. A confidant when I needed him. Howard may not have been a perfect father, or a perfect man. But he believed in people, and if nothing else about him deserves celebration, that does.” Peggy gave a flickering smile. “He believed in you too.”

“Bullshit.”

“Language.”

“I guess this is the part where I say he could have shown it by being around?” Anthony mused, taking a swig of his scotch.

Peggy looked down at her lap. They sat in a heavy, cold silence until Anthony set down the glass with a clink, and stood up.

“Jarvis is waiting for you outside,” he said, and left the room.

Peggy watched him go with tired eyes. Her heart ached.


	10. "Do you want to tell them?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Food x "Why can't you hold me in the street?"

“Are you sure about this, English?” Angie asked, holding a dress up to her front. She frowned at the mirror and switched to another one.

“We’ve been to lunch with Howard and Jarvis before, I don’t see why this should be any different,” Peggy replied, meeting Angie’s eyes in the mirror. She leaned against the bedpost, arms folded, already changed.

Angie sighed and turned around. “I guess we just gotta be more careful now.” She looked Peggy up and down. She was wearing her purple dress with the knot at the neck. It was knee length and perfectly unprovocative, but Peggy managed to make anything work exactly to her advantage. “And it’s gonna be hard if you’re gonna keep dressing like that.”

Peggy chuckled and looked down at the floor. “This is hardly immodest, darling.”

“Doesn’t have to be,” Angie said, pecking Peggy’s cheek and tossing one of the dresses onto the bed.

“You flirt.”

Angie stabbed into a piece of pie and looked up at Howard. So far they’d made it through the whole meal without Angie’s hand wandering or Peggy’s eyes drifting a little lower than her face, but it was getting harder by the minute to maintain. Peggy was just so gorgeous, and Angie was still adjusting to the fact that she was hers, so she had a bit of trouble controlling herself. She didn’t see why she and Peggy shouldn’t be able to be affectionate with each other in public, and she’d complained about it at length with Peggy, who fully agreed with her. But the world was narrow and  _ people just aren’t there yet, darling. _ Honestly though, Angie was convinced Howard himself was not entirely straight.

“Angie, you’re uncharacteristically quiet, an audition go badly or what?” Howard asked, making Angie jump.

“No, nothing like that,” Angie said, sticking the pie in her mouth. Maybe if she was chewing he wouldn’t ask any more questions.

Peggy eyed her with concern, and Angie looked away.

“Is everything alright, darling?” Peggy asked.

“Everything’s peachy, I just gotta go to the bathroom real quick.” Angie stood up and left the table, ignoring the wary look Peggy and Jarvis shared as she did. She got to the bathroom and locked the door, sitting down on the closed toilet and shoving back the tears that threatened to spill.

This was ridiculous. She’d had no problem hiding who she was before, and news travelled quickly where she was from. If Angie could conceal the way she felt about Marie, the butcher’s daughter who picked flowers and stuck them behind her ears in spring, or Loretta, her Ma’s church friend’s niece who liked to climb the fire escape outside her building, surely she could keep it up now. But she felt warm and fluttery whenever she went out with Peggy, and she loved the way Peggy’s strong fingers laced perfectly with hers, and more than ever she just couldn’t help but feel like exploding into a million little pieces with how  _ stupid _ it was that she could be shunned for these beating, blissful feelings.

There was a knock at the door.

Angie got up, dragging her feet. She opened the door to find Peggy, just as she’d expected, looking at her worriedly.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

Angie stood aside to let her in and closed the door behind her. She looked down at the floor.

“Did Howard say something?”

Angie focused intently on a chip in the tile floor, straining her eyes so as not to cry.

“Angie?”

She looked up at Peggy. “It’s just- I don’t know, it’s never bothered me like this before, but-” she took a step closer to Peggy, taking her hand and cautiously meeting her eyes. “Peg, we gotta dodge and weave. I can’t touch you in public, or tell our friends about us, and it’s- it’s so  _ stupid _ , I-”

“I feel the same,” Peggy said, giving Angie’s hands a squeeze. Her eyes were sad and smiling, and she wore that wistful expression that had been one of the first things to intrigue Angie about her. She felt like she did back when they first met, when Angie shoved down the tingling in her fingers whenever Peggy came in for her morning coffee, and she had to repress the urge to knock it off the table just to get her to stay a bit longer.

“Sorry I ruined lunch,” Angie said.

“You haven’t ruined anything, darling.” Peggy paused for a moment, considering. “Alright. It’s risky, and we’ll be subjecting ourselves to endless lip from Howard, but I think we can tell him.”

Angie’s eyebrows knitted together and she looked at Peggy with wide eyes. “You really think so?”

“I’m not sure, but I trust him and Mister Jarvis with my life. To be honest, I think Howard has been dropping hints for quite a while.” Peggy smiled lightly. “Do you want to tell them?”

Angie’s face broke into a smile and she gave Peggy a quick kiss. “Right now?”

“Right now.”

Angie yanked Peggy forward by the hand and unlocked the door, beaming back at her, her chest feeling lighter than air. “You get to tell him how it happened.”

“You want me to tell him that I scaled the Griffith and we found a cadaver under Dottie’s bed?”

“All of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor reference to my fic Someday
> 
> Fics start getting more involved here


	11. "You've never gotten jealous before"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Fancy x Take Me or Leave Me - Rent

A full year. That’s how long it took for Angie to convince Peggy to break out that gold dress before she relented. At first it was:  _ Angie, I only wear this undercover, I could be recognized.  _ And then it was:  _ There is no way I am wearing this to a company party, darling, it’s unprofessional.  _ And finally it was:  _ It’s a hassle. I can hardly move in it, and it rather washes me out, doesn’t it? _ No, no it did not. In fact, that gold dress amped her up so much Angie almost fell off the bed when she came out of the bathroom.

It fit her like a glove, melding to every curve, the shine of the fabric emphasizing the dramatic flare of her hips. Not to mention it was very low-cut, and the sleeves seemed to be more for decoration than function as they draped loosely around strong arms. For a split second Angie reconsidered leaving for Howard’s New Years party at all. She would be perfectly content to spend the rest of the evening here in their room, learning every single way to peel off that stunning dress.

“Angie, are you ready to go?” Peggy said, tucking her lipstick into her purse.

“Huh? Oh, yeah…”

Okay so maybe it was a mistake. Although she doubted Peggy even knew it, every eye in the place followed her like a unified school of fish. Angie even saw a couple of dropped jaws, and it took all of the willpower she had not to  _ politely _ request that they pick them up off the floor. She stuck closely to Peggy as they ascended the stairs to the main room.

Howard was exactly where they suspected he’d be: at the center of everything, surrounded by a gaggle of philanthropists, businessmen, and their trophy wives - all of whom were dressed similarly to Peggy. No trophy wife had the assets to pull off their audacious attire, however, and ended up looking like children playing dress-up next to Peggy, who’s bold and full features backed the moxie of her gown like no other.

“Peg! You’re a knockout, what made you change your mind?” Howard grinned, ushering them forward into his circle. “Been trying to convince her to break out this old thing for years.”

“Angie did, actually,” Peggy said airily, brushing invisible dust from her skirt.

“Is that so? I’d like to personally thank you on behalf of every man in here with a pair of functioning eyeballs,” Howard said in Angie’s direction.

Annoyance flared in her chest, and her hand curled into a fist at her side.

“It was about time,” she said cheerily, instead of punching him in the face.

“About time indeed.”

“That’s quite enough, Howard,” Peggy said briskly. Her fingers discretely found Angie’s wrist and gave it a quick squeeze.

Angie returned the gesture gratefully, but something hot and ugly still burned inside her.

They drifted about the room for the next hour or so, greeting Peggy’s colleagues and chatting up officials surrounding some big project that she wouldn’t go into detail about. Whatever it was had Peggy focused, but very excited, and every official she talked to seemed to feel similarly.

The whole time, Angie just stood beside her, a smile plastered across her face, nodding along. She felt acutely out of her depth. She wasn’t averse to Peggy’s clear authority around such powerful people. In fact, it kind of got her going - it brought out the strength and ostentation that Peggy was always forced to conceal, but what irked Angie was just how little she understood of what was being said. The nature of Peggy’s job meant she could never be fully transparent with Angie, but she’d be lying if she said it didn’t bother her sometimes.

It was only eleven, but Angie had had just about enough of the party. She pulled Peggy aside as she was finishing up with some visiting statesman, and tried to wipe the irritation off her face.

“What is it?” Peggy said, face flushed, a bright smile slowly fading from her cheeks.

Angie immediately felt guilty about the plug she was about to pull, but if Peggy couldn’t be fully honest with her, it was up to Angie to pick up the slack. “I’m gonna head home,” she said. “You don’t have to leave, but I’ve had about enough.”

“Enough of what, darling?” Peggy asked, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

Angie’s eyes flicked down to Peggy’s bodice and then back up.

“Angie…”

She looked away, avoiding Peggy’s eyes. She folded her arms and let her shoulders slump inward. “I don’t like this color on me, but I just can’t seem to shake it.”

“And what color is that?”

“Green,” Angie muttered.

“Green,” Peggy said, folding her arms as well.

“I don’t feel good about it, but all these eyes on you, it makes me… frustrated.” She squeezed her arms, desperately wishing that a wormhole might open up and drop her anywhere else but here.

“You’ve never gotten jealous before, what’s the matter?” Peggy said, concern, and a touch of irritation flashing across her face.

“No wonder it took you so long to make a move, Peg, you never notice when someone’s givin’ you the eyes. I don’t blame ‘em, but the whole room’s looking at you.”

“And nobody’s said anything crass about it except Howard. I really don’t see the issue here.”

“There- there isn’t one, English, I just don’t like to see it, is all.”

“It was your idea for me to wear this silly thing,” Peggy said shortly, “I hardly think it fair for you to change your mind now.”

Angie shrank. She was right, of course. “I know,” she sighed, dropping her arms. “I never had to deal with this before, I’ll stay.”

Peggy softened. She looked around quickly and took Angie’s hand. “We should talk about this later, okay?”

Angie nodded, and Peggy pressed a light kiss to her knuckles, bringing a slight smile to Angie’s face. “Thanks, English.”


	12. "Where's the fun in that?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Kick x Enemies to lovers
> 
> TW for dubious consent, just the one sentence at the end

She was handcuffed to a table. Nothing new, boring, actually. Dottie could think of a million ways to get out of them. What kept her in that chair wasn’t the agents surveilling her from behind the two-way mirror, the handcuffs, or even the fact that she was completely unarmed. She could use the pin sewn into the cuff of her sleeve to pick the lock, maybe flip the table on top of her interrogator, pinning her to the floor. But then that lovely neck might bruise, and Dottie didn’t particularly feel like killing Peggy today.

Dottie raised her eyebrows at the mirror, a pleasant smile on her face, taunting the agents behind it. Probably the blond meathead with too much pride to let Peggy get all the credit from breaking her; and the one with the crutch.

“Is something funny?” Peggy planted a hand on the table to Dottie’s right. She wasn’t wearing her usual perfume. This one was lighter, more floral.

“Hot date tonight, Peg?” Dottie said innocently.

“What?”

“I like your new scent, must be a real special someone…” she let her eyes drift back over to the mirror. Hopefully Agent Crutch would be holding onto it tight, maybe even cast his gaze downward in disappointment. He really was awful at concealing his feelings.

“Tell me about this,” Peggy said, holding up the Arena Club pin for Dottie to examine.

“Come on, Peggy, where’s your technique?  _ You will tell me this, and this, and this, _ I was hoping you’d be more creative.” She looked up at Peggy, blinking slowly, like a cat - like she knew drove Peggy up the wall.

“Well, what would you prefer?” Peggy said, setting the pin down on the table just out of Dottie’s reach.

Dottie’s eyes flicked down to Peggy’s chest and back up. “I had a few things in mind…”

Peggy was wearing one of her colorful blouses. The kind she left a bit too unbuttoned that granted Dottie a peak underneath when Peggy leaned over. She was mildly surprised Peggy had managed to retain all that curvature with how muscular she was. Usually strength came at the expense of a woman’s softness.

The door opened before Peggy could reply, and the blond agent’s head popped in.

“Carter, a word?”

“Now?” Peggy huffed.

“You heard me.”

Peggy scoffed one more time and swiped the pin off the table, heading out after him.

He wouldn’t be coming back. On top of the verbal barrage Peggy was undoubtedly laying on him, his fragile ego would shatter should he continue to watch her interrogate Dottie twice as effectively then he ever could. (Two times zero was still zero, but appearances worked wonders). One down. Now only Agent Crutch remained, and he was all too easy to unnerve. Dottie rattled him - that much was clear.

So she just stared at the mirror, head cocked, eyes a little wider than usual. She played up the smile a bit more. Tapped her fingernails rhythmically on the table.  _ Come on back in, Peg, _ she spelled out in Morse code.  _ Play with me. _

The door squeaked open shortly after and Peggy came in, alone.

Dottie turned her smile in Peggy’s direction and evened out the tapping. Pinky to index finger and back, no message to be found. “How’s your charming friend?” she asked.

“Agent Thompson is just fine,” Peggy said. Her fist was tight at her side.

“I meant the other one, the one with the crutch. Bad news?”

Peggy’s knuckles went white and her collarbones flared. Agent Crutch was gone then. “Nothing that concerns you.”

Dottie moved her hands down to her lap under the table. She slipped the pin from her cuff and slowly started picking the lock. She tilted her head at Peggy expectantly.

Peggy opened her mouth and closed it again. “One of our recent tips was just disproven,” she said. She really was an awful liar. How she was so good at her job despite that confounded Dottie.

Dottie just looked at her, waiting.

“It’s none of your concern,” Peggy said again, approaching Dottie and bracing a hand on the back of her chair.

She glanced at it askance, and then back up at Peggy, locking eyes with her. If Peggy’s gaze shifted any further down she would notice Dottie’s working fingers, and she only needed a moment more before-

Dottie launched up out of the chair and grabbed Peggy’s wrist, twisting her arm behind her back and pinning her against the table.

Peggy let out a grunt and quickly kicked a heel into Dottie’s shin, but Dottie hooked her foot around Peggy’s ankle and yanked it just far enough so that she had to brace herself on the table with her free hand to keep from falling.

“They’re both gone, aren’t they?” Dottie hissed in her ear, tightening her grip on Peggy’s arm.

Peggy grunted again and tried to pull her foot from Dottie’s, but Dottie stiffened in place, holding fast.

“It’d really be better if you answered because it’ll be much nicer if they are,” she said, slowly pulling a hand away and reaching for the handcuffs. She jerked Peggy’s arm around, tangling Peggy’s legs and causing her to fall into Dottie’s abandoned chair.

“Sousa will be back any second,” Peggy said through gritted teeth, “So whatever you’re planning, you may as well drop it.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Dottie mused, pulling Peggy’s other hand behind her and locking it in place. She placed her hand on the table to Peggy’s right, leaning in close enough so that her lips brushed the shell of her ear. “After all, I think you deserve this after kicking me out of that window.”

Peggy shuddered beneath her. “Deserve what?” she said against Dottie’s shoulder.

Dottie’s left hand trailed up, over Peggy’s knee. Higher.

Peggy’s stomach hitched and she let out an indignant gasp. “Dottie, what on Earth-”

Dottie just smiled.


	13. "This changes things"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Smut Challenge x “Imagine Person A of your OTP kissing Person B’s scar/s”

Angie had an audition in an hour. The theater was a couple busses and a short walk away, which would take about twenty five minutes with light traffic. She should have had plenty of time. But Angie’s luck for the day came crashing down rather spectacularly, as today had to be the first day that she and Peggy arrived home at the same time. And of course Peggy had just returned from a gruelling mission, and her hair was sticky with something dark and ominous that Angie tried not to think too hard about; as were her shoes, which Angie only noticed because they left a red mark on the wall where Peggy kicked them off. As any woman knew intimately well, blood was a specific kind of uncomfortable against the skin, and Angie really didn’t want to know just how much of it coated Peggy’s under her coat. So she’d offered her the first shower, like an idiot.

“Hey, Peg, you almost done in there?” Angie called from behind the changing screen. There were other bathrooms in the massive penthouse, but they agreed early on that the one branching off from Peggy’s bedroom had the best water pressure. She was moments away from condemning herself to a drippy, pathetic shower when the consistent drum of water shut off.

The door opened and Peggy’s silhouette curved across the thin screen. Her shadow hunched over and twisted a towel around her hair.

“Sorry, darling, all yours,” she said. When her silhouette retreated far enough that it melded with the bed’s, Angie darted out from behind the screen and into the bathroom, quickly shutting the door behind her.

It wasn’t that Peggy was perverse to nudity - she’d been in the army for goodness’ sake - and Angie wasn’t either. But they walked a fine line these days, and sooner or later it was going to break.

Living together did that to a girl. Made her awfully aware of her roommate’s every little mannerism and tic. When they darted about the kitchen, Angie cooking and Peggy slipping in for something or other, they stepped in perfect tandem, like practiced choreography. Angie opened her mouth, or her hand shifted in a certain direction, and Peggy was already handing her whatever she needed. It had to help that Peggy was an expert at reading people - or maybe just Angie. Either way, she knew the exact way Peggy hip-checked the kitchen drawers closed, and the furrow of her brow when she sat reading in the armchair she’d claimed beside the fire. And Angie would be lying if she said she hadn’t noticed just how pronounced that hip-check was, or the precision with which Peggy’s expert fingers flipped through the pages.

So no, Angie didn’t hide behind the changing screen because she was a prude. She hid because she wasn’t sure what she might notice about Peggy when she was hardly dressed and dripping wet.

Angie envisioned rolling muscles, highlighted by droplets of water as Peggy shook out her hair, a flush in her cheeks from the steam, eyes closed in a rare moment of relaxation. She shivered despite the hot water, and quickly finished showering.

She scurried back behind the screen, holding her towel high on her chest.

“For goodness’ sake, darling, you don’t have to be so scared,” came Peggy’s voice.

Angie froze.

“Uh, yeah, I know, English. You just seem real tired is all.” She kicked herself. It was hardly four.

“I’m perfectly awake, Angie, and besides, I’ve nothing you don’t.”

Was it Angie’s imagination, or was Peggy trying to coax her out? Also, she thought with a snort, Peggy had quite a bit more than she had.

But it would’ve been suspicious, and just plain awkward if Angie refused now. So she stepped outside, clean clothes in hand, towel still wrapped securely around her.

Peggy sat on the bed facing away from her, foot propped up on a tiny knob on the dresser, towelling her leg dry. Thankfully, she still had a towel wrapped around her top, but those strong shoulders shook with every movement, and  _ gosh _ her shoulder blades were pronounced.

Angie’s eyes fixated on Peggy’s back, high on her right shoulder. Two perfectly circular scars stood out stark-white against her skin. They looked familiar, and a wave of useless fear washed over her. Were those bullet wounds?

“Yes, they are.” The back and forth movement of Peggy’s towel had stopped, and a hand reached up to touch the twin scars - Angie had wondered out loud. Embarrassment bloomed in her chest. “One of my first souvenirs from my time at the S.O.E..” Peggy’s voice was soft and her tone was even, so Angie couldn’t have offended her too much.

“S.O.E.? Like that British intelligence op? My cousin knew a guy who helped out there, he said it was real heavy stuff,” Angie said, shifting her clothes onto both arms and settling them in front of her. “When’d you get into it?”

“1940,” Peggy replied quickly.

Angie tensed. She’d hit a nerve. “What’s going on, Peg?” she asked, slowly coming to sit beside her.

Peggy’s hands twisted tightly around the towel and she stared hard at the dresser. She took a deep, slow breath, and looked over at Angie. Her eyes were filling with tears, and Angie immediately regretted bringing it up.

“Aw, I’m sorry, Peg, forget I asked-”

“No, it’s okay-” Peggy released her grip on the towel and took Angie’s hand, offering a weak smile. “That’s when my brother died. He put in my recommendation. In a way, he’s responsible for everything that’s happened since then.”

“You never told me you got- had a brother,” Angie said, giving her hand a squeeze.

Peggy’s smile flickered again. “His name was Michael. He was perceptive, and brave, and he always believed in me. At first, I completely rejected the idea, left the letter on my dresser for months. But then I saw the soldiers out the window, and-” tears slid down Peggy’s face, which contorted with harsh sobs.

Angie’s heart ached for her, and she covered Peggy’s hand with her free one. “Well, it sounds like you done right by him, English,” she said softly.

Peggy smiled sadly and looked over at her. “Thank you, Angie.”

Angie returned the smile and shifted her knees to the side, pulling Peggy into a tight hug.

Peggy accepted the hug, but refused to bury her head in Angie’s shoulder even as hers shook and her breathing hitched; and eventually it evened out again.

All the while Angie brought a hand to her wet hair and played with the ends, feeling the occasional tear roll down her bare back until Peggy relaxed in her arms.

“Thank you, Angie,” Peggy said again, pulling back and gripping Angie’s arms. “Really.”

“Anytime, English,” Angie said. She brought her thumb to Peggy’s cheek and gently wiped away a tear clinging to her lashes. She stood, picking up her clothes from where they lay discarded on the bed, and turned her back. She plucked her bra from the pile and pulled it around herself, about to clasp it when-

“Wait.”

There was the squeal of springs as Peggy stood, and suddenly Peggy stood right behind her.

Angie inhaled sharply, hands stilling on the clasp.

“Angie…” Peggy breathed, warm on the back of Angie’s neck.

Angie shivered.

Strong hands gripped her waist, and she turned around.

Peggy stood so close all Angie could see were her eyes - deep, and still bleary from crying - burning ardently.

“English, what gi-”

Peggy’s hands flew to her face and before Angie could react she pulled her into a searing kiss. Angie yelped against her mouth, her chest bursting with glitter and heat as her eyes fluttered closed. Her lips were soft and her kiss was hard, and Angie’s hands slid up Peggy’s thighs and over the towel, settling on her waist as best they could while she still held her own towel under her arms.

Peggy let out a high noise and released Angie’s face, hands finding Angie’s at her waist.

Angie’s stomach plunged, and she immediately let go. She’d gone too far - a kiss didn’t mean she wanted more. Her hands got a whole three inches from Peggy’s hips before Peggy snatched her wrists and guided them back, locking eyes with her.

“Don’t you dare stop,” Peggy commanded, voice raspy, rougher than Angie had ever heard it before. It made Angie’s heart race like it only ever did when Peggy showed up in her beautiful black and red robe, like it had when Marie’s hand slipped into hers and tugged her into a guest room at a dinner party.

Angie had  _ wanted _ Peggy for so long. Wanted those strong hands gripping her thighs, those expressive eyes rolling back, she wanted to know her every gasp and whine. Angie wondered what Peggy would sound like with Angie’s head between her thighs. Was she loud? Angie heard it clear, a resounding, lovely groan that Angie pulled from her, and pressure built between her hips in the most wonderful way. 

So Angie obliged her, gripped her waist hard, yanking Peggy closer and leaning down. She pressed hot, open-mouthed kisses across her jaw, ducking across to get at the sensitive skin below her ear.

Peggy gasped, head tilting back, granting Angie access to kiss down her neck. Even down from her ear and the column of her neck, Peggy was muscular; carved as if by the old Italian masters, her collarbones defined like a statue’s as they shifted against Angie’s mouth. Her skin was still slick, and wet Angie’s lips as they explored.

Peggy’s hands slipped from her wrists and her arms wrapped around Angie’s shoulders, so Angie let her hands wander. Peggy was soft and pliant, but solid muscle moved like rippling metal under Angie’s fingers, sucking the breath out of her lungs.

“You’re so strong.” It slipped out unbidden, but Peggy flexed unconsciously, and Angie’s stomach dropped. Her mouth faltered against Peggy’s skin as her hands roamed toward the backs of Peggy’s thighs, and Peggy’s skin grew hot and sweetly pink against Angie’s lips. She felt the towel slipping from her grip and momentarily stopped her exploration to bring her arms back in- but Peggy shuddered.

“Don’t stop,” she sighed.

“The towel-”

“Let it.”

Angie’s entire body set on fire as Peggy’s arms retracted, fingers tracing Angie’s shoulders as they drew forward and gripped the edge of the towel where it was tucked in.

“Can I-”

“ _ Yes. _ ”

Peggy tugged the towel free and let it drop, exposing Angie to the chill in the room.

She felt Peggy’s towel rough against her stomach, the cool air on the backs of her thighs, still wet. Angie shivered, and suddenly Peggy was stepping back. She opened her mouth to ask why when she noticed Peggy’s eyes, wide, running all over her, taking her in. Angie shifted, suddenly intimately aware of every part of her. Her arms felt too long and she didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she folded them across her chest.

In response, Peggy untucked her own towel.

Angie’s cheeks flushed and her heart beat thunderously as the towel slithered down to the floor, revealing those pronounced hips, and her breasts, full as Angie had imagined.

She dimly registered her mouth open, gaping, only because a shy smile was creeping across Peggy’s face.

Peggy moved first, tugging Angie closer and sliding her hands back up to her face, pulling Angie into yet another Earth-shattering kiss; this one hot and messy. Peggy bit down on Angie’s lower lip and Angie gasped as her tongue made its way in. Her hair still smelled lightly of perfume despite the shower, and her tongue expertly licked into Angie’s mouth. She pulled Angie closer and Angie followed automatically, right hand flying to the bed pole for balance, the other finding Peggy’s waist.

When the need for air overcame the need to stay as close to Peggy as possible, Angie broke the kiss. They stayed that way for a long beat, breathing hard, Peggy’s hands still on Angie’s face.

Angie looked up and their eyes met.

“This changes things,” Peggy murmured.

“It better.”

“Good.” Peggy sat down on the bed, swinging her legs up, pulling Angie with her so Angie had to crawl on top of her, bracing herself on all fours. Peggy’s chest was beautifully flushed and heaved beneath her, practically begging for Angie’s attention-- so she provided it.

She lowered herself, resting on her forearms as she mouthed across the achingly soft skin, enjoying Peggy’s breathing growing more and more labored the closer she got to the center.

Peggy’s hips jerked against her as she took a nipple into her mouth. She sucked hard, flicking over it with her tongue. Peggy clung to her back, and she relished the urgency of it, but she wanted more. Wanted to feel Peggy’s nails dig in, wanted her to leave angry red marks, crescents, streaks, artwork against Angie’s skin with pleasure.

Pride rushed through her, delivering sparks to the tips of her fingers as they trailed down Peggy’s side. What a feat it was to pull such reactions from a tenacious, resilient, atomic bomb of a woman like Peggy. That was a true accomplishment. In that moment, Angie was ready to give up any future of fame she sought, or any level of success on Broadway. Really, what could be more of a victory than Peggy’s stomach hitching under her touch? What other possible context could hearing her name be more rewarding than an unbreakable woman’s resolve crumbling?

“ _ Angie, _ ” Peggy gasped, arms tightening around Angie’s neck. “Please-”

Angie switched sides, teasing her skin, sucking hard enough to leave marks, causing Peggy’s legs to squirm and flex against her knees. Her hand ventured lower, following the curve of Peggy’s hipbone, teasing the skin of her inner thigh. She let her fingers get close, scratched lazily upwards with her nails, near enough to brush coarse hair until Peggy’s hips rolled as if to bring them closer.

“Now, hm?” Angie mused against Peggy’s breast.

Peggy nodded rapidly, hands flying down, fisting in the sheets.

“I dunno…” Angie drew her fingers away, tracing outwards over her thigh.

Peggy made a desperate noise and her eyes fluttered open, looking down at Angie pleadingly.

Angie met her gaze, but let her fingers draw still further until she felt the tension begin to leave Peggy’s hips and she drew them suddenly in again, coaxing a groan out of Peggy louder than any before. She hadn’t even touched her yet. Angie thrilled at the prospect of her fantasy coming to life, and smirked into Peggy’s chest.

“ _ Please. _ ”

Her fingers drew up. She pushed aside Peggy’s folds and pressed two fingers gently into the perfect spot at the apex of her thighs, slick and ready for her.

Peggy cried out and her hands leapt to Angie’s hair, holding tight as Angie stroked her slowly, precisely.

“Is this right?” Angie asked, kissing back up to Peggy’s collarbone.

Peggy’s nod was lost as she threw her head back - Angie seemed to have found the perfect rhythm.

She took note, working at the same pace until Peggy’s hips began to cant against her hand.

It was probably the wrong time, but Angie became keenly aware of her own skin pressing against Peggy’s, the soft friction as Peggy rolled her hips. She let out a low groan and brought her knees up so she could better lay across Peggy, heat building between her own thighs. Her fingers worked faster as Peggy’s breath grew shallower.

“ _ Angie _ ,” Peggy gasped, face contorting in a cry at the change of pace, hips moving in time with Angie’s hand.

Angie pressed her own hips into Peggy’s.

Although Peggy was undoubtedly strong enough to move regardless, she stilled under Angie. It took effort - Angie could tell because she was shaking, her grip on Angie’s hair getting tighter. She must be close. She moved still faster, pressing harder until Peggy’s thighs snapped shut around her hand and her back arched.

Angie looked up at Peggy’s face as her eyes squeezed shut and her lips fell open.  _ Beautiful _ .

Her own name tumbled out of Peggy’s mouth, strangled, breathy, and loud, just as Angie hoped it would.

She worked Peggy through the aftermath, slowing only when her legs fell open and her fingers in Angie’s hair loosened. Angie admired the way she twitched with aftershocks, releasing Angie’s hair and resting her hands at her sides.

“You’re so beautiful, English,” Angie murmured, pressing kisses up her soft body until she pecked her lips, chaste in the afterglow. She wasn’t sure Peggy had even heard her until she raised a hand to Angie’s cheek. Her eyes shone.

“Beautiful,” she whispered back, reverent. How Peggy Carter looked at her and thought reverentially was completely lost on her, but if Peggy was going to keep looking at her like that, Angie might eventually understand it.

She grinned, willing back tears as Peggy returned the smile, brighter than the fire in their hearth, and more priceless than any of the first editions in the library.

“As much as I’d love to look at you forever, darling, don’t you have an audition today?” Peggy said.

“Way to ruin the mood, English,” Angie scoffed, but she put on a speculative expression and tapped her fingers - still slick - against the bedsheets. “But you know-” she clicked her tongue. “I just can’t seem to remember.”

“Angie, I won’t have you missing an audition on my account-”

“There’ll be another one.” Angie pressed her lips to Peggy’s, and with Peggy’s following whimper she knew she wouldn’t argue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> be_the_good_guys and I challenged each other to write smut for the first time. Hope it's alright :)


	14. "My hero"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Some lyrics from Shrek the Musical
> 
> I know  
> I'm sorry  
> be_the_good_guys will not be denied

_ “Don’t worry, fair maiden, I will save you from this awful dragon!” Peggy swung her wooden sword, jabbing it into empty air. She stretched out her free arm in defense of her imaginary princess as she ran. _

_ She leapt forward and tucked her knees in, crashing to the grass as she brought the sword down on the head of the great awful dragon. _

_ “You’re safe now, Princess,” Peggy said with a wide, toothy grin. She stood and held out a hand to her fantasy princess, laying trembling in the grass. _

Peggy leaned against the doorway, arms folded as she watched Angie parade around the living room. She’d cleared out the space, enlisting Peggy to help her push the furniture to the walls in order to provide her with adequate space.  _ Hey, you got your maps with all those pins for  _ your _ gameplans, this is mine. I gotta get as close to an actual audition scenario as possible, English, _ Angie had insisted.

“Oh Philip,” Angie sighed, pressing a hand to her chest, eyes down on the script she held out in front of her. “I’d given up hope that anyone would come and rescue me. Much less that it’d be someone as strong and handsome as  _ you _ .” She fluttered her eyelashes and winked in Peggy’s direction, earning a short laugh.

Peggy’s smile widened and she shook her head contentedly.

“My hero!” Angie cried, swinging her hips forward and throwing her hand onto an imaginary prince’s chest. She held the final pose for a moment, then dropped her arm. She tossed the script onto the couch. “So, how was that? Good, right?”

“Magnificent, darling,” Peggy replied, moving from her position in the doorway and pecking Angie on the cheek. Her princess. She held onto Angie’s face a moment longer than necessary, just looking at her.

“What’s got you all chummy, English?” Angie asked, mirroring her smile and curling her fingers around Peggy’s hand.

“Nothing at all.” Peggy pressed a kiss to her forehead. Her chest felt light, her whole body warm and happy. “Nothing at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that thing I said about them getting longer lmao


	15. "Is everything alright?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Angry x “Imagine Person A of your OTP is upset over something, so Person B takes them for a late-night drive”
> 
> This is not romantic nor is it at night but I do what I want

“Of course. All very good reasons to leave, but perhaps all you need is one compelling reason to stay,” said Jarvis, avoiding Peggy’s eyes.

A smile flickered on Peggy’s face and she looked down, bracing a hand on her hip. She opened her mouth and closed it again, dropping her hand. Her arms fidgeted before she crossed them and looked up, tapping her foot. The squirming combined with her heart-shaped sunglasses gave her the incongruous look of a child caught stealing.

“Is everything alright, Miss Carter?” he asked.

“Yes, of course,” she said quickly. She looked in a different direction.

“Are you sure?”

Peggy dropped her arms, letting out a long breath.

“Would you like to… talk about it?” he asked cautiously, remembering in great detail the last time he’d pushed her like this, involving some very unsafe driving practices and an even more formidable stare.

“No, I can-” Peggy paused. She took a deep breath and placed her hands on her hips. “Thank you, Mister Jarvis, but I’d rather not.”

Jarvis gave a short smile. He thought given recent events that she might be more willing to confide in him. Though this was far from a heartfelt discussion, he supposed small steps forward were better than none at all. “Perhaps you need time to think. After all, the past few weeks have been… trying for us all. Would you care to drive around for a while, clear your head?” He held his breath, preparing for a kick in the shin.

When it didn’t come, he looked up to find Peggy…  _ considering _ .

“Yes, that might be useful,” she said airily, stepping off the curb and opening the passenger side door.

Astonished, he hurried back to the driver’s side before she could change her mind. He pulled away from the curb with tense shoulders, ready to slam on the brakes at any moment.

Peggy stared outside, hands folded in her lap, watching absently as the palm trees slid past. Her hair blowing in the wind was the only indication she wasn’t a statue, sitting rim-rod straight and hardly moving other than to adjust her sunglasses now and again. Something was definitely wrong.

The sunshine streets were as lively as ever, flags flying gently in the spring air, but Jarvis was pulled taut as a wire. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, eyes fixed straight ahead.

He sat with his anxiety for a few blocks, glancing over at Peggy every so often as if he were ferrying a ticking bomb rather than a conflicted friend.

“Well, spit it out,” Peggy said, gaze still focused outside.

Jarvis jumped and cleared his throat, shifting his grip on the wheel. “Are you sure there’s nothing you wish to discuss? I’m told I’m a very good listener.”

Peggy sighed. Her shoulders slumped.

Real worry trickled into his anxiety and he glanced over at her again.

“I appreciate your concern, Mister Jarvis, but I’m afraid little about this situation can be helped,” she said.

“This coming from the same woman who, when told she would never be held in the same esteem as her male coworkers, earned the respect of even the most sexist of her associates? Who saw an inextricable prize from an impenetrable facility and formulated, then perfectly executed a plan to extricate it in less than a day?”

Peggy smiled down at her lap and Jarvis’ chest lit with pride.

“Thank you, Mister Jarvis,” she said softly.

“Of course, Miss Carter. Would you care to return to the S.S.R.? Or have you decided to take your flight after all?”

“The airport, please,” Peggy said. Her features settled and she looked sure again, the woman Jarvis had come to respect so reappearing with the dignified lift of her shoulders.

He smiled, relieved. “Wonderful.”


	16. "Hey, isn't that Peggy?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Sugar x "I barely recognized him at all, I saw him doing things you shouldn't do with all that power," - Death of a Hero

The Griffith was a hot coal in Angie’s chest. As were the people who lived there. When she looked back on all the girls she’d silently watched get thrown out, the coal burned. No one had spoken up when she was thrown out either. Not Sarah, who Angie never particularly liked. Not Lisbet, who Angie taught how to keep rolls after finding her in the kitchen late at night. Not even Bianca, a fellow Italian girl that helped her move in.

So while Angie waited outside the Griffith, her chest felt hot despite the chilly evening. She shifted from foot to foot, trying to ignore the itchy feeling that she was being watched (it was certainly Ms. Fry’s omniscient stare filleting her through the glass doors).

After what felt like an eternity, Carol and Gloria stepped outside, beaming as they caught Angie’s eye.

Angie squealed, taking off into their arms.

“Angie!” Gloria held her at arms-length, looking her up and down. “We haven’t seen you since that mess with your Brit friend, are you okay? Did you find another place to live?” 

Angie chuckled and waved her off, batting her hands away. “Oh you bet I did, Peg’s million-dollar man’s putting us up in one of his penthouses a couple blocks short of Broadway. Place has a phone in every room, and more first editions than the East 23rd library!”

“Gosh, Angie, Peggy never mentioned she had a man like that,” Carol gushed..

“She doesn’t,” Angie said quickly, “He’s just a friend.” Jealousy had yet to make a green-eyed monster out of Angie Martinelli, but the idea of Peggy with a guy turned her stomach. She would have to get over that at some point, but for now she was perfectly content to go out dancing and drinking over it.

The memory of peach schnapps surfaced at the thought - the night Peggy’s coworker died and Angie missed her mouth with forkfuls of pie more than once as she listened to Peggy talk.

She shook off the bitter taste of rhubarb and alcohol, focusing instead on the story Carol was telling about the girl a few doors down from Angie. Apparently she’d moved out without anyone noticing, even Ms. Fry, with all her things overnight. Vanished without a trace. Angie had never liked her anyway.

Unbeknownst to most who never strayed beyond 23rd Street, the East Village thrived with violets and pansies alike. It housed many a speakeasies converted after Prohibition from hiding indulgence to hiding undesirables beneath the floorboards.

Angie, Carol, and Gloria favored a club in the basement of a quaint secondhand bookstore run by their friend, Loretta. A single violet resting on the lip of the flower boxes outside indicated that it was open for the night.

Angie checked over her shoulder to make sure no one could see as they slipped inside.

No bell rang when the door opened - it was removed when the speakeasy opened for the night. Only Carol’s hushed giggles and the subtle thrum of music through the floor disturbed the silence as they gleefully headed for the concealed stairway.

Gloria grinned, pressing a finger to her lips, knocking the passcode on the single askew bookshelf.

It slowly pushed open and jaunty music burgeoned from within, inviting their laughter to flow freely.

As always, the club buzzed with activity: the dance floor packed, the band in full swing.

Loretta cheerfully waved them over from the bar, already pouring Angie her usual. “Peach schnapps with a spritz of lemon for my favorite Brooklyn girl,” she grinned, pushing the drink over to Angie.

“Thanks Loretta, you’re a doll,” Angie said, taking the drink. She turned and leaned her elbows against the bar, facing out towards the dance floor.

Carol and Gloria thanked Loretta and joined Angie. They sipped their drinks in silence for a moment before Gloria elbowed Angie in the arm.

“Hey, isn’t that Peggy?” she said, pointing toward a small lounge area to the right of the dance floor.

Angie followed her gaze. As luck would have it, perched on the arm of a plush white couch, leaning so far over she was almost laying down across the top of it, was Peggy.

Immaculate as always, her curls were arranged artfully about her face, pulled over one side and gathered at the nape of her neck - a style Angie had never seen her wear before. She also wore a dress Angie didn’t recognize: a shockingly low-cut gold number that draped sumptuously across her shoulders-- elegant skirt floating just above a sticky puddle on the floor.

A vice clamped down on Angie’s heart, growing tighter and tighter as Peggy’s companion’s hand drifted higher and higher up Peggy’s back, hovering dangerously close to her backside. She didn’t recognize the man. Whoever he was, Peggy had not deigned to tell her about him.

Angie slipped away from the bar, ignoring Carol and Gloria calling after her. She inched along the edge of the dance floor, ducking when Peggy’s gaze turned in her direction. Her legs shook as she approached the lounge, and she weaved into the crowd of dancing couples, dodging kicks and hair whipping around her. Her heart pumped thunderously in her ears, drowning out the music and calls of “hey there!” and “watch it!” as she kept her eyes trained on Peggy. Elbows and arms blocked Angie’s view, flying over Peggy’s face just in time for her to tilt her head back and laugh.

Despite the sweaty, suffocating heat of the commotion around her, Angie’s blood ran cold. The laugh was high and clear, so unlike the soft one reserved for barstools and nightcaps.

Peggy leaned forward even further, pressing her chest directly into her man’s face, her finger coming up beneath his chin. Her lips ducked in close and whispered something in his ear that prompted him to abruptly stand.

As Peggy swung her legs over the couch, accepting his hand to assist her, Angie turned away. She had seen enough. She swerved around a sudden kick, slamming right into a dancer mid-lift. He lost his footing and stumbled, but Angie didn’t linger long enough to see if he dropped his partner. She hurried through the crowd, following Peggy and her date as they scurried along the wall toward the stairs.

The same three thoughts drummed relentlessly in Angie’s head to the beat of the music: One,  _ This was a queer club, why in the world was Peggy flirting with a man here? _ Two,  _ Why was Peggy in a queer club? Was she queer?  _ And three,  _ What in the world had gotten into Peggy? _ Angie never knew her to be a flirt. Flippant rejoinders and coy little smiles didn’t lend themselves to brazen acts of public seduction, no matter how many times Angie dared imagine so.

The crowd thinned the closer Angie got to the edge of the dance floor.

Peggy and her date glanced around before crossing the room toward the bar- the bar where Carol and Gloria still lingered. She’d have to cross directly in front of Angie to get there.

Angie’s hands began to sweat as Peggy drew nearer, and she stepped quickly behind a pair of dancers that had drifted from the crowd.

Peggy looped her arm through her date’s, and a suggestive smile spread across red, red lips.

“I’ll be right there, sugar,” she said in his ear, releasing him and watching him head for the bar, hand on a pronouncedly-jutted hip. Her accent was gone.

What the  _ hell _ was going on.


	17. "Stop the boat!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Splash x "Take my hand, I'm trying to save your life!"

“I dunno how you convinced me to do this, Peg,” said Howard. He glanced out over the shimmering river and gulped.

“Need I remind you that this was your idea,” Peggy said.

“You always gotta have the last laugh, don’t you.” Howard turned and leaned his elbows back against the railing, trying to appear nonchalant, but he was so tense he could crack a walnut between his shoulder blades.

Peggy chuckled and leaned on the railing beside him, watching the partiers lining the banks of the Thames. A thousand flags flapped as their carriers jumped up and down and threw themselves into strangers’ arms, so united in that moment that war seemed an inhuman fallacy. The air was bright with laughter, red, white, and blue-painted faces alight with joy. The war was over, and the world let out a collective sigh of relief.

Most of the flags were British, but some flaunted America’s stars and stripes. Try as she might, she couldn’t shake the layer of gloom hanging over her, nor the tug on her heart at each one. It had been a month since Steve crashed into the Arctic. They hadn’t found him yet (not for lack of trying), but for all Howard’s insistence that people - especially super-soldiers - could survive frozen for a long time, Peggy honestly didn’t believe he could have lived. She tried not to think about his strong body, unreachable under the ice, where Peggy could do nothing for him.

She stared down into the steely water, glittering in the afternoon sun. Her grip on her forearms tightened.

“What’s got your panties in a bunch?” Howard asked, nudging her elbow with his.

Peggy sighed, looking out over the river crowded with boats. “Do you really think we’ll find him?” she asked. She needn’t clarify who. In recent weeks, he had been all they talked about

“We gotta think so, otherwise there’s no point in looking at all. And I’m not too keen on the idea of my best work sitting there becoming penguin food.”

“ _ Howard! _ ”

“I know, I know,” Howard sighed. “But if you don’t laugh you’re gonna cry, ya’ know? I miss him too.”

Peggy didn’t reply. Willing herself not to cry, she tried to focus on the bridge getting smaller and smaller as they cruised along. It blurred in her vision and she quickly wiped her eyes.

“Hey, I’m not Steve Rogers, but if you were lookin’ for a V-E day kiss, I ain’t bad at it,” Howard said. She could hear his sly smile.

“I can already see the headlines: Wartime genius Howard Stark swoops in on Cap’s girl,” Peggy said airily. She was leaning up off her elbows and starting toward the other end of the boat when a hand caught her arm.

Before she knew it she was being spun around and a pair of lips and a bristly mustache pressed to her mouth.

Peggy yelped, and instinctively shoved hard against Howard’s chest, sending him flying over the banister. He plunged into the river with a splash.

“Howard!” Peggy rushed to the railing and peered over, heart pounding.

Howard surfaced a moment later, splashing and clawing at the water. “I can’t- I can’t- get help!” he sputtered.

“Oh God, Oh God, Oh God-” Peggy pushed off and hurried toward the captain at the wheel. “Stop the boat! Howard’s fallen overboard!”

The captain’s mouth fell open and he pulled the brakes. “Donoho, man overboard!” he shouted in the direction of a burly man standing at the bow of the boat.

The man - Donoho - spun around. “Where!”

“Over port side!” Peggy called, rushing over to him and leading him to where Howard had fallen, now several meters behind the boat in the time it took to stop.

Donoho tore off his military jacket and climbed over the railing, diving expertly into the water. He reached Howard in no time and paddled back to the boat, where several passengers were lowering the boarding ladder for them.

Immediately when they reached the top, Howard was utterly swarmed, no less than five towels being shoved at him by concerned people.

“Not funny, Peg,” Howard coughed, accepting a towel offered by the blonde who he’d been eyeing the whole outing. “Okay, maybe a little.”

Peggy’s shoulders relaxed and she smiled, folding her arms. “Can you really not swim?”

“Now-” he cleared his throat, glancing sidelong at the blonde. “Is not the time for jibes, don’tcha think?”

She shook her head, pleased. “Next time don’t grab me without warning. Women don’t typically go for that sort of thing.”

“Disagree.”


	18. "Your hair's so nice"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Braid x “Making really bad jokes really late at night and full on snort laughing with each other”

Peggy drank the Howling Commandos under the table with ease. When Dum Dum Dugan - a massive man who’d been raised on whiskey from a far younger age than was appropriate - was singing and swaying along to Morita’s jovial piano, Peggy remained buzzed, perched on a table beside Steve; also futilely nursing a beer.

So how she ended up giggling and dazed sitting with Angie on the couch, she really had no idea. She was only halfway through her fourth glass of whiskey. Maybe it was exhaustion from the past week’s constant back and forth: Thompson sent her as the sole auditor for three different locations the S.S.R. was keeping tabs on for several groundbreaking cases (presumably his revenge for her utterly dismembering his predictions on the cases). Maybe it was afterglow from the glorious meal Angie had waiting for her when she returned home, or maybe it was Angie’s sheer amicable presence gently lowering her guard, but Peggy felt floaty and happy, and a little dizzy.

Angie was telling some story about the Griffith girls’ attempts at roasting a stolen chicken, but the name of the woman she was describing completely slipped Peggy’s mind. She dimly noticed Angie’s loose grip on her glass, tipped perilously askew as she spoke, and the cheeriness in her voice, and the warmth of her leg pressed to Peggy’s knee.

“An- and then she pulls the whole chicken- the  _ whole _ chicken out a’ her sweater, and sticks a pool cue through it-”

“A pool cue?”

Angie nodded rapidly. “Uh huh. Half a pool cue. Don’t know where the other half is though.”

Peggy snorted, the liquid in her glass sloshing dangerously close to the edge. “How d’you lose half a pool cue?”

“I have no idea, English,” Angie said, shaking her head. She lifted an arm all the way up, and draped it haphazardly over the back of the couch, levelling her glass toward Peggy. “But- an’ this is important now. Don’t give Carol any a’ your rolls,” she said sternly.

“Angie, darling, we don’t live at the Griffith anymore,” Peggy giggled, taking a swig of her whiskey.

“She’ll find a way to get ‘em,” Angie muttered, sipping her own drink.

Peggy snorted again, doubling over at Angie looking suspiciously to the side at nothing in particular, like a private eye considering her target:  _ rolls _ .

“What’s so funny?” Angie said, wrinkling her nose.

“Nothing at all, darling,” Peggy said, brushing a nonexistent strand of hair out of her face.

“Yourhair’ssonice,” Angie mumbled, as if she hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

Peggy smiled warmly, and before she could stop herself she said “it’d look better with your hands in it.” Her stomach flipped, eyes immediately shooting over to Angie.

Angie just smiled back, setting her glass down on the coffee table. “Well then c’mere, I bet I could figure out a french braid,” she said, extending her legs and patting the cushion, welcoming Peggy to sit.

Relief flooded her, and she quickly turned, scooting back until her arms rested on Angie’s thighs like the arms of a chair.

“Been years since the last time I did this,” Angie murmured, combing her fingers through Peggy’s curls.

A shiver went down Peggy’s spine, and she took a bracing sip of whiskey.

Despite the initial tension in her shoulders, Peggy couldn’t help but relax into the domesticity of it, fingers tapping absentmindedly on Angie’s thigh as Angie yanked at her hair. Maybe to a more sensitive woman it would have been painful, but both the alcohol, and Peggy’s extraordinary pain tolerance made it almost pleasant. Her mind drifted off to those thoughts she usually kept under wraps, sinking back as she imagined Angie’s nails scraping against her scalp, and the sounds that might come with it. She tipped her empty glass back for a sip.  _ Hm _ . Angie’s thighs were wrapped around Peggy’s hips. She wondered dimly what would happen if she turned around.

“Done!”

Peggy jolted back to earth, cheeks going red.

“Whadaya think, English?” Angie said cheerfully, pointing toward the mirror behind the couch.

“Wonderful work, Angie.”

“But you haven’t even looked.”

“Mhm.”


	19. “I brought you here.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Knife x “Your character looks at Death, Death looks at your character. “You’re early,” Death finally says” - thefakeredhead.com
> 
> Sam is mean to me

The world wasn’t orange, if Peggy recalled correctly. Nor was it empty. And last she remembered she was not standing ankle-deep in an infinite lake.

“What in the world-” she murmured, water sloshing as she spun around. No, she was not imagining things. The sky - for lack of a better word - was indeed a glowing orange, and extended uninterrupted in every direction. She stood in the middle of a wasteland - a seemingly endless shallow pool, the water almost holographic. It rippled around her ankles as she moved, refracting soft yellows and purples despite no such colors existing anywhere else nearby.

She caught a glimpse of a structure in the distance. A gazebo, by the looks of it, and, standing in the center of it, a silhouette.

Taut as a wire, Peggy took a step forward- and found herself directly in front of it with a splash. Transported, as if by magic. Her stomach churned, and she braced a hand on the closest pillar. She let out a slow breath, closing her eyes and trying to focus. First, she had to find out where in heaven’s sake she was-

“Peggy?”

That voice was familiar. It had to have been ten years at least since she last heard it, but it was impossible to forget. It haunted her dreams, though usually muffled by radio static.

“Steve?” Peggy breathed, gaze shooting up. Sure enough, Steve stood right in the center of the gazebo, a pleasant smile on his face. Expecting her, by the looks of it. “Steve, where on earth are we?”

“Come on, someone smart as you? I bet you can guess,” Steve said conversationally, hands tucked into his pockets, most unbefitting of the circumstances. His eyes glinted with mirth as he smiled softly at her. When she only blanched, he nodded down, towards her sternum.

Blood bloomed across her silk blouse, spreading quickly.

Peggy’s hands shot to the stain, ripping open her shirt, sending buttons flying in every direction and plinking into the water. She peeled it back and- a slit - perhaps two inches long - right between her ribs, spurted blood. It ran over her fingers, dripping red into the dark water. “Steve-” she gasped.

The moment it left her mouth she stilled. Strange. There was definitely a significant wound, and blood still trickled down her stomach, but she felt nothing. Not the cut, and not the blood, sticky, thick, and hot as it should be on her hands.

She remembered now. She had been stabbed.

Peggy leaned on the pillar, knees going weak. “I was… I was in Russia. Our intel was wrong, it was supposed to be empty…”

The facility they were infiltrating swarmed with guards, armed to the teeth, ready for their tiny, woefully small party. A guard pinned her against the wall. She screamed. She clawed at his face, drove her knee up between his legs- but there was a searing heat, bone splintering- then nothing.

Steve frowned, the crease between his eyebrows appearing, so achingly familiar.

“How- how are you here?”

Steve looked around. He shrugged. “Don’t really know, to be honest. You must’ve brought me here.”

“ _ I _ brought you here.” Peggy folded her arms. When they touched bare skin she remembered she’d torn open her blouse. Embarrassment heated her chest and she pulled it closed.

“Yeah, Peg. I thought it’d be a couple years at least. You’re early.”

“One of us had to be,” she said wryly.

Steve chuckled, glancing down at the floor and then back at her. “Guess so. Still glad I got to see you,” he said.

A smile flickered across her face. “Yes. We never did get our dance.”

“No we didn’t,” he said, gentle smile returning. “Seems like you found the right partner, though. She must’ve been special.”

Peggy flushed, and an aching sadness overwhelmed her. “She is. You would have loved her.”

“I’m sure I would’ve. Your brother’s here too, by the way. Been waiting for you a while.” His smile grew. “Who’s the late one now.”

“Um- excuse me, he was early.”

“You ready?” Steve offered his hand, and Peggy found that her blouse was no longer caked with blood; it was buttoned up perfectly.

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not as straight as it looks I swear


	20. "Call me Peggy"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Lonely x Invisible String by Taylor Swift

New York was temporary - or it was supposed to be. She could always rejoin the S.O.E. back home, and it wasn’t as if Manhattan held the most pleasant memories. But Peggy Carter had never run from anything in her life, and she supposed the city did have its charms. The people there seemed to think a strong Chicago accent cloaked in curling cigarette smoke indicated a man who might throw them into the East River on a whim. Men carried empty holsters and planted their hands on their hips in order to expose them, women talked a mile a minute, and her coworkers were actually honest with her (not pleasant, but at least straightforward). And she’d be lying if she said Steve’s ghost hadn’t tethered her there for the first month or so.

The East Coast’s fickle weather meant that she was caught without an umbrella appallingly often for someone born and raised in London. In London, fog and gloom were simply business as usual - the city adapted to it, it was part of its character. Rain muted New York. New Yorkers caught in the rain hunched their shoulders and skipped steps, crashing through puddles trying to find shelter, newspapers over their heads. They walked faster in the rain, so focused on their socks soaking through and the dampness on the backs of their necks that the rest of the world simply blurred, drawing invisible barriers between every passing stranger.

Never too long without work, such separation never really registered with Peggy. Only during moments of keen awareness of the clink of her spoon against the rim of her tea cup, or military obituaries over evening radio did loneliness take hold of her.

Days like this, caught in a sudden storm, let it in as well; which was how Peggy found herself ducking into a diner bearing a neon sign reading “L&L,” hazy in the rain.

She let out a sigh of relief and straightened her shoulders, flexing them to shake off the wet. 

The diner was cozy, dimly lit, and mostly empty, the radio behind the counter crooning soft jazz music.

She took a seat at a booth second from the back, shrugging off her coat and laying it on the cracked cushion, pulling the book she’d been neglecting from her purse.

“Hey there, what can I getcha?” came a peppy voice, laced with Brooklyn heart that drove a spike through Peggy’s chest.

“Oh-” Peggy said, closing the book, holding the page with two fingers. “I hadn’t looked yet, what would you recommend?” She looked up at the waitress, and the ache dissolved. She was slender, and her smile was kind yet pragmatic, blue, blue eyes filled with optimism. She reminded Peggy jarringly of Steve.

Peggy completely missed the next words out of the waitress’s mouth, and - embarrassingly - had to blink a few times before she came back into focus. “I’m sorry- could you repeat that?”

“Get too close to The Blitz there, English?” the waitress - Angie, according to her name tag - said good-naturedly.

Peggy bristled, but couldn’t help a slight smile.

“You look like you need something hot and sweet. How’s a cup of tea and some cherry pie sound?” said Angie.

“That sounds delightful, thank you,” Peggy replied. “And it’s Margaret, but please, call me Peggy.”

“Angela, but I go by Angie.” Angie stuck out her hand for Peggy to shake, and she took it. “At least until Broadway calls. Then the name’ll be Angela Martinelli up in lights over on Midtown West, you mark my words, Peggy.”

Peggy smiled again. Something about the ambition, the utter certainty in her voice immediately endeared Peggy to her, which was quite a feat. “I look forward to it,” she said.

“Be back with your order in five,” Angie said cheerfully, and hurried off toward the bar.

Looking down at her book, Peggy registered a warmth in her chest, a lightness she suddenly realized she hadn’t felt in months. Maybe years. She glanced up toward Angie, who waited with a hand on her hip beside a slowly filling pot of hot water. When was the last time Peggy smiled like that? Steve? Getting hired at the S.S.R.? She couldn’t recall.

Angie returned with her tea, and a slice of pie that was really too big for only one person.

Peggy raised an eyebrow. “While I appreciate your generosity, this is enough for a small nation, darling.”

“And for standard price too-” Angie winked, “so you better appreciate it, English.”

Needless to say, the pie wasn’t the only part of the evening she appreciated.


	21. "Careful, Miss Carter!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Gold x “You jump, I jump” - Titanic
> 
> Birds and I watched Titanic together and then gave each other Titanic themed prompts because we're disasters

“Why Miss Carter, I know this component is vital to Mister Stark’s new project, but surely there are other ways to retrieve it,” Jarvis shouted out the window.

“None that fit into our time frame though, are there Mister Jarvis?” Peggy grunted. Admittedly, edging along a tiny ledge on the fourth story of a well-secured building was not her ideal method, but really it was about the third most dangerous thing she’d done that week, and maybe the fourth time she’d inched along a ledge like this one. Although a small comfort, the experience did help when Peggy looked down over the street below and felt all the air rush out of her lungs.

“Perhaps, but there’s a certain necessity for cost-benefit analysis in scenarios like this, aren’t there?”

Peggy didn’t reply. She pressed tightly against the wall, freezing fingers digging into the tiny spaces between stones. She regretted not tying her hair back before attempting this as she spat it out of her mouth. It stung her eyes much like the wind itself, which only got stronger as she inched along. That didn’t bode well for the return trip. She had to quickly shove down the dread building in her chest at the thought of repeating this process, or it might paralyze her.

The tiny golden component was looped around a spike on the nearest balcony railing, glinting teasingly in the setting sun.

“Damnit Howard,” Peggy muttered as the light refracted directly into her eyes. She squinted at the little gold ring, focusing on it and it only as her foot caught on a raised bit of stone and fear shot down her spine like a lightning strike.

“Careful, Miss Carter!”

“Wherever would I be without your guidance, Mister Jarvis!”

Just two more steps. Lifting her foot as little as possible, she toed forward. Holding onto a jutting stone with her right hand, she leaned to her left, reaching as far as her arm would go toward the metal banister. Just a few more inches and she could clamber onto it, blissful solid respite from this wind tunnel. Her fingers gripped the stone so tightly its gravelly surface began to puncture the sensitive skin in the creases between her fingers as she arched still further. Her back screamed as her shoulder blades squeezed together- just one more inch,  _ one _ more inch- and her fingers gripped cold metal. She yanked herself forward, letting out a cry of relief as she clung to the railing.

Somewhere behind her Jarvis shouted his congratulations, muffled by the sound of her own breathing, thunderous in her ears. Grounded only by the pillar of cold pressed to her front, Peggy hugged the thin bar tight.

A sudden gust of wind blew through her thin blouse, chilling her to the bone and reminding her that she was indeed four stories in the air.

Was it her imagination or was the metal a bit crunchy underfoot? This building was very old.

She adjusted her footing, preparing to swing over the banister. Raising up on her toes, she gripped it with both hands. She braced her arms and pulled up- and the metal gave way beneath her feet.

Her shoulders wrenched in their sockets and her body dropped like a stone. Dangling in empty air, she clung to the railing on muscle memory alone; half expecting it too to screech and bust, sending her plummeting down to the busy street below.

Peggy took in a breath and looked up. The sun blinded her. She would have to do this by touch then.

It was just a pull-up. She could do a pull-up. She could do seventy four pull-ups.

Blinking up, the tiny ring looked a thousand smiles away, blurred in the slanting sun.

Another deep breath, and she began to pull. Her muscles screamed. Biceps on fire, her shoulder joints popped in complaint, dragging herself upward until she could swing her legs up. Curled like a child - or maybe a koala - she crouched almost sideways in an effort to cling to the bar and find a stable ledge; contorted in some vertical fetal position, catching her breath. Her arms and legs trembled something terrible, and she buried her face between her arms, focusing on the sound of her own breathing as she waited to regain control of her faculties.

The door out to the balcony burst open, and a pair of strong hands gripped Peggy’s forearms, nearly startling her feet right over the edge again.

“Jarvis-” Peggy gasped, and twisted in his grip in order to latch onto his wrists as he pulled her up and over.

He was saying something, probably in the form of a panic, but Peggy’s legs still shook and she stumbled forward into his arms.

“No- no, I can-” she began.

Jarvis held her fast, bracing his hands beneath her elbows in order to keep her upright, and said nothing.

A powerful wave of gratitude washed away any embarrassment she was feeling, and Peggy really couldn’t wave him off. So she closed her eyes and waited to stop shaking.

“T-thank you, Mister Jarvis,” she said.

“Of course, Miss Carter. You fall, I catch you, remember?”

A smile flickered across her face. “I- I thought it was the other way ‘round.”

“No partnership is a one-way street. No matter how fit either partner may be.”

There was a brief silence.

“Did you get it?” Peggy asked, pulling herself out of Jarvis’ arms.

“Of course,” he said, pulling the gold ring from his pocket, a weary smile on his face. “I do hope it was worth the trouble.”

“So do I.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is platonic, I do not ship Peggy and Jarvis, just felt the need to clarify that.


	22. "I've just had a... mishap"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Childhood x “Person A: What is the one thing I told you not to do  
> Person B: Burn the house down  
> Person A: And what did you do?  
> Person B: Made you dinner  
> Person A:  
> Person B:  
> Person B: and burnt the house down”

Angie was floating on cloud nine. She flounced all the way home from the bus stop, basking in the setting summer sun. The sweet-smelling breeze lifted her hair every so often like one of those wistful girls in movies waiting on the edge of a cliff for her man to return from war. Her hat folded and stuffed into her breast pocket, she broke into a skip every few steps simply because she felt light enough to do so. A balloon that might just sail away, that’s how she felt. She booked three -  _ three _ \- auditions in the next two weeks, one of them she might actually get a callback for! She had to pick a song, and iron her favorite dress, and get Peggy to read lines with her. Then maybe if she was really lucky, she might get a romantic scene. Then Peggy would hold her in those strong arms of hers and wrinkle her nose as she read the script over Angie’s shoulder, which directed her to gather her up real close and-

The smell of smoke snapped Angie from her fantasy.

She looked up at the penthouse where, indeed, a healthy cloud of smoke poured from the open window, accompanying a grating beeping noise.

The sight stuck a pin right into her balloon. It puttered empty with a pathetic wheeze and shriveled like a prune.

Terror flooded her. She threw open the door and wasted no time with the elevator, heading right for the stairs. She burst out of the stairwell and dropped her bag, coughing through the smoke until she came to an abrupt halt before the kitchen.

White foam spurted through the dark cloud, accompanied by heavy coughing and some very British cursing.

“Peggy, what on Earth-”

The foam stopped.

Peggy emerged from the smog looking like a freshly off duty firefighter, wiping her eyes, fingers smudged with black. “Angie-” she coughed, “I thought you’d be at least another hour.”

“Is everything okay?” Angie said, eyeing the clearing kitchen.

“Yes, everything is under control, I’ve just had a… mishap.”

Angie folded her arms and raised a brow.

Peggy looked sheepish - an occurrence less common than an incident-free Martinelli Thanksgiving - and leaned the fire extinguisher against the doorframe. “When you called you sounded so excited and I thought-” she glanced back into the kitchen, toward the blackened oven. “I thought I might make a celebratory dinner.”

Angie’s heart melted. “Aw Peg, you didn’t have to-”

“But now I’ve gone and mucked it all up, I promise I’ll figure this out. We could go out, once I’ve finished cleaning this all up, of course, but I was really hoping to-”

“English.” Angie stepped forward and took Peggy by the arms. “It ain’t armageddon. But you’re real sweet for thinking of me,” she said. It warmed her right to the core, actually.

Peggy smiled down at the floor, a light pink rising in her cheeks. It was so cute Angie nearly forgot the smell of burning in the air.

She dropped her hands and cleared her throat, turning her gaze instead to the kitchen, which looked like it’d been used as a dressing room for an entire ensemble then hit by a tornado for good measure. The counters were smeared with spices and eggshells, and completely covered in dirty bowls, some shelled in others in an attempt to clear things up. Measuring spoons hung over the edges of some of the cleaner ones, and whisks and other miscellaneous kitchen tools filled the occasional gap in between. The oven had gotten the worst of it, blackened even on the outside like something had exploded, and the hand towels typically hung over the handle lay crumpled on the floor.

“What were you making with all these bowls, English?” Angie said incredulously, plugging the sink and turning on the tap.

“Oh, no, I can take care of it. You take a shower and get changed, I owe you at least a dinner and maybe a new kitchen after all this,” Peggy said, hurrying over to Angie. She took Angie’s hand at the faucet and pulled it away from the sink and toward herself.

Angie opened her mouth and closed it, a retort dying on her tongue.

Peggy quickly let go.

“It’s okay English,” Angie said, recovering her sly smile. “This ain’t half a Martinelli Sunday dinner. Last time my Uncle Bobby tried helping out we were scraping tomato juice and vegetable oil off the window for days.”

Peggy laughed lightly and took the bottle of dish soap from the side of the sink, pouring a generous amount into the warm water. “You’ll at least let me help,” she said, stooping and plucking one of the fallen dish towels from the floor.

Aside from that, she made no move to distance herself from Angie, even to adjust the drying racks or turn off the faucet. For that one she actually had to reach all the way across Angie, and for a moment her curly hair got close enough that Angie could smell the lingering smoke in it.

Eventually Peggy had to move in order to lay out additional towels - the drying rack couldn’t fit everything - and Angie found she had been holding her breath. She wasn’t sure exactly what was different about today- they always cleaned up together. They moved well together, washing and drying in perfect tandem. Angie passed a dish and Peggy’s hand waited for it in the same place every time, and when Angie moved away from the sink to gather more dishes, Peggy took over, and slid right back to her spot when Angie returned. It was a rhythm, a dance of sorts. Like those in her Ma’s kitchen back home learned over years and years memorized in weeks. Not even her brothers and cousins knew the way Angie moved like Peggy, or seemed to watch her constantly, always ready to steady her when she slipped on a wet spot with unjudging hands.

Like now, when her foot slid on a bit of spilled dish soap like a cartoon character over a cartoon banana peel. Her hand shot out to steady herself on the counter, only she found it just out of her reach and her body slid right out from under her. She fell in slow motion, stomach swooping until, jarringly, a pair of strong arms hooked right under hers and caught her in midair.

Angie yelped as Peggy yanked her backward, knocking the wind briefly out of her lungs as her shoulders collided with Peggy’s front.

“Are you alright?” Peggy said quickly, chest heaving against Angie’s back, more labored than was really necessary.

“M’alright, English,” Angie said. She took stock of her splayed limbs - right leg straight out in front of her, left curled half behind her in some sort of undignified Russian squat dance - and dimly registered that Peggy was supporting more or less her entire body weight. Valiantly ignoring Peggy’s biceps flexing beneath her, Angie recovered use of her limbs and straightened.

The acrid smell of smoke was replaced with the clean, homy scent of dish soap as they finished in relative silence save for the occasional  _ got any more room over there?  _ or  _ I can take care of that whisk, darling  _ breaking the comfortable atmosphere.

Or, it should have been comfortable. Angie spent the time glancing over at Peggy’s hands mechanically drying the insides of bowls, keenly aware of her rolled sleeves and bare forearms; trying not to get caught because friends don’t steal glances at each other when they’re not worried or a bit too drunk to call it intentional. If she felt Peggy’s eyes on her every so often between dishes, it was probably her imagination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was thinking of adding more to this one


	23. "Put something on, will you?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Drapetomania (the overwhelming urge to run away) x Getting ready... in extremely close quarters
> 
> Casual_Peppers joined us here! She writes Critical Role, The Umbrella Academy, and The 100! Go check her out!

Although Peggy didn’t think it possible, she had found somewhere with less privacy than the womens’ dressing rooms at the Wheaton base during the war. Even including nurses and secretaries, men assumed a vastly larger percentage of the population. Changing areas were provided accordingly; or that’s how Colonel Philips justified the lone two womens’ locker rooms on site. They were located on opposite ends of the base: one on the far Eastern border where the occasional squirrel slipped in through the propped-open window, and one on the Western side with walls so thin that anyone nearby could hear the locker room talk as clearly as if through a telephone. So each day the women picked their poison: forest foragers foraging through their garters, or Private Siler’s arrant readings of some very graphic letters. One secretary would elect not to overhear Private Siler’s wife’s most recent hangups, and would bring a friend with her. That friend would tell her friend, who brought another, who brought another until eventually the entire female population migrated to one change room - tromping through the wet grass in the dark like ants in a line - providing a cacophonous wake-up call for the rest of camp. It wasn’t a morning at the Wheaton base until someone’s rear knocked another woman into her friend’s back. They were pressed together along the benches like sardines.

Such generous accommodations were not provided at the S.S.R.. Although Peggy had garnered a certain level of respect, the S.S.R. had yet to hire one more female agent, much less provide womens’ changing rooms. So Peggy found herself changing with the men, on the other side of a set of lockers. Again. Avery and Levine were shouting about something or other (they were right next to each other - there was really no need to yell), and Jack’s replying laughter echoed over the barrier, making Peggy feel like she was right there with them despite the empty corridor. Their boots scuffing on the stone was so loud it may as well have been right next to her.

“Hey Carter, my tags are in number 109, grab ‘em for me, will you?” called Thompson.

Peggy rolled her eyes. “On it.” She would get them alright, and hurl them right over. If she was lucky she might hit him in the head. Since she couldn’t see him he couldn’t even blame her for it. She padded down the rows of lockers, focusing on the cool stone beneath her bare feet rather than how satisfying the  _ chink _ of metal hitting him in the face would be.

Jack added something else that Peggy missed as her eyes flicked from locker to locker searching for 109. 99, 101, 103-

“Ah- Jesus, Marge, put something on, will you?”

Peggy whirled around and found Jack standing at the end of the corridor with a hand over his eyes. She spun back around, bracing a hand on the lockers, caught in exactly the same position as with Daniel before their mission in Russia. “Oh- bloody hell,” she muttered, looking over her shoulder at Jack. “Is there something else you need, Jack?”

“Put something on,” he said again, the strain in his voice tempting her to drag this on, make him squirm.

The men on the other side fell silent, waiting for the snide debate that would follow.

“Gladly, if you’ll give me a moment,” she said briskly, fingers tightening on the tiny ridge between lockers. When Jack didn’t move, she added, “Your dog tags will still be there once I’ve finished.”

“I’m  _ your _ boss, Carter,” Jack said, but the fight was gone from his voice and he went back to the mens’ side without protest.


	24. “I just didn’t know you had it in you.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Rain x Imagine someone loving every inch of you… they’re infatuated with you… they want you so much, in every way, always

Rain brought out the drama in things. Made everything seem permanent, fixed, so describable. Peggy was no poet, but rain inspired eloquence and existentialism in the  _ tink tink tink _ of her spoon on the rim of her teacup and the sugar slowly dissolving in its wake. The word Angie might have used would be ‘ennui,’ but she was dramatic regardless of the weather. Peggy couldn’t for the life of her figure out why she loved that about Angie- she had little patience for theatrics. Still, she supposed Steve had been plenty dramatic.

It had taken her a long time to accept the comparison between them - Angie and Steve - and it was one of a great many steps she conquered every day since the war. The first was getting over Steve. Peggy had a feeling she would never truly forget him. How could she? The only closure they had was cut short, abandoned to static and months on the icy Arctic sea.

Angie softened the story. Her wide blue eyes allowed Peggy to fall into memories when she needed to, memories of Steve’s serious, earnest gaze. Then the laugh lines around them drew her back to reality. A tide ebbing and rushing back in. The sudden halt of the war - and her relationship with Steve - had been like sprinting down a pier and suddenly finding she’d run out of plank, dropping like a stone into the water. Those eyes slowed the crash, soothing the vertigo.

About two months into their friendship, Peggy realized she knew very little about Angie. She felt horribly guilty about it- she had used her, fallen into her, allowed herself to be cushioned in a false memorial. Angie had given herself so readily to Peggy: never more than she could handle, but so intimate her heart cracked under the weight of it - of the  _ trust _ Angie had for her. And she had treated Angie like a portrait, nothing more than a window into the past, a faded photograph of idealism lost.

Three months later, Peggy ordered tea instead of coffee. Doing so had been a concession of sorts. It meant finally admitting that it had not been the caffeine that made her heart beat so fast around Angie.

That day in October, over the rim of a teacup, those blue eyes were finally, wholly Angie’s. How could she have ever seen Steve in them? Steve’s eyes had held passion, but they were so steady, so focused that his artist’s wonder was lost. Peggy was wary enough for the both of them. 

Angie’s gaze was sympathetic, open, and so, so personal. For having never liked being the center of attention, Peggy relished Angie’s esteem. Angie was honest, curious, and interested. She was so observant, she radiated awareness. Peggy would never understand all those customers that looked at Angie and only saw a pair of legs and a scapegoat for their complaints. How could anyone think of her as ditzy?

A mug thunked down on the table beside Peggy’s teacup, and a chair slid out beside her. Glancing up, she gave Angie a quick smile as she sat down. She dog-earred her page and closed the book, picking up her teacup and leaning back in her chair, eyes lifting to the window. They had dragged a side table over to it within days of moving into Howard’s penthouse. Peggy spent her mornings there when she could, sipping tea and reading as the city roused itself down below.

Quiet evenings like this were few and far between. Usually they lounged by the hearth, Peggy in her armchair and Angie stretched out on the couch, only rustling pages and the crackling fire disturbing the comfortable silence. Today, Peggy had opted to sit and listen to the rain as she read, and far be it for either of them to spend the post-dinner satiety alone; so Angie settled beside her, close enough that their elbows knocked together when they turned pages. She still smelled of tomato sauce and basil, and the sweetness mixed pleasantly with the earthy smell of the rain.

Peggy’s gaze flicked from the window down to their drinks on the table. Steam curled up from her teacup and Angie’s mug, fogging the window as raindrops slid down safely on the other side. It was achingly domestic. Her free hand twitched. She curled it into a fist to avoid reaching over and taking Angie’s hand. Angie’s hands were long-fingered and lean, and Peggy noticed that she had a burn scar around the curve of her left hand between her thumb and index finger.

“What happened?” she asked softly.

Angie looked over at her with just her eyes. “Hm?”

Peggy nodded toward Angie’s left hand supporting the spine of her book.

Angie smiled sheepishly, and offered her hand to Peggy for inspection. “Missed the mug pouring coffee,” she said as Peggy took it, “Got second degree burns and had to keep it wrapped for two weeks. Fry-”

Peggy took Angie’s hand and her words blurred together as Peggy ran her thumb along the discoloration. It wasn’t gritty, vicious, and red like the soldiers’ wounds as they laid groaning in the infirmaries; it was pink and smooth, splotchy like an island on a map. A minor injury from a simple accident that would stay with her forever. Funny how minutiae could leave something so permanent. Such lasting change seemed like it should be introduced by an event worth remembering.

A phantom ache spread through her right shoulder and she instinctively set down her teacup, reaching back to touch where two bullet wounds interrupted the skin under her shirt.

“-lighter,” Angie was saying. “Hey, what’s wrong, Peg?”

“Oh, nothing,” Peggy said, and quickly dropped her arm.

Angie raised a brow and her fingers curled reassuringly around Peggy’s hand. “You sure about that?”

“Old wounds.”

“Where from?”

“The war.”

“Oh. You don’t gotta tell me, but I’m a good listener, and-”

“It’s alright.” Peggy squeezed Angie’s hand and offered a short smile. “It was a long time ago.”

“Jeez, Peg, you make it sound like decades. You’re like twenty six, grandma.”

Peggy chuckled and looked up at Angie, who smiled at her in that mischievous way of hers that made Peggy feel like the only person in the world. She quickly looked back down, resuming her gentle exploration of Angie’s scar.

“Waitressing is traumatic and all, but I bet you’ve seen worse than coffee burns, English.”

“Yes, I have. But this is very… you.”

Angie’s hand tensed microscopically, but Peggy immediately let go. “Oh- I’m sorry, it’s-”

“It’s alright, English,” Angie said softly, and reached for Peggy’s hand. She gave it a gentle squeeze. “I just didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Had what in me?” Peggy said, looking up at Angie with the barest of smiles.

“Cheese.”

“Excuse me, I take offense to that,” Peggy said, picking up her teacup and lifting it to her lips if only to hide her growing grin.

Angie chuckled and picked up her mug, and they faced the window, leaning back in their chairs to watch the rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my favorites


	25. "Yes honey?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Dessert x “Cooking together for the other flatmates but we are both super at it”

Somehow, curled up on Peggy’s bed drunk on schnapps was how Angie found out that Peggy’s birthday was April fifth. Angie always gave her bigger slices of pie than Mal liked and never wasted an opportunity to compliment her (hey, there was a lot to compliment), but she liked to go all out for birthdays. Even with three brothers and more cousins than she could count, each and every Martinelli birthday was an event: tables pushed out to the backyard, Angie cooking with her Ma for hours, relishing in the opportunity to bark orders at her brothers, and more dessert than could fit on the kitchen counters. If there was anything she rued about being a waitress, it was having to serve food that she didn’t make - especially on birthdays. If Angie remembered correctly, she had given Peggy a slice of pie baked early that morning, and it wasn’t even warm.

It was May now, and an excessive amount of disappointment churned with the schnapps in her stomach.

“How come you didn’t tell me?” Angie asked, swirling her drink in the glass, trying to keep an edge of defeat out of her voice.

“I’ve never made a production of them, I suppose,” Peggy replied, “Especially during the war. Sadly the exceptions on sugar rationing didn’t extend to birthday cakes. I would’ve mentioned it earlier if I’d known it meant so much to you,” she said, taking Angie’s free hand.

Angie gave it a light squeeze and looked up at Peggy, who tilted her head a bit to the right, eyes wide, giving her the discordant look of a guilty puppy. “No need for the eyes, Peg, I just wish I coulda made something for it.” An evil smile began to spread across her face. “Next year, you’re coming to my Ma’s - you won’t be able to move for weeks. My birthday this year, Uncle Bobby had to sleep on the couch-” Angie groaned. “Carol’s birthday is tomorrow.”

“Have you prepared anything?” That crease between Peggy’s eyebrows formed, and she set down her glass.

“I got nothing,” Angie said, glaring into her own glass. “This really ain’t my year,” she muttered. She felt Peggy’s calf tense and looked over at her. Her face was set, and there was a mischievous glint in her eye. “Okay, I know that look, what are you planning over there.”

Peggy’s hair whipped around as she turned to face Angie, and the mischief in her eyes spread into a sly smile. “How would you feel about sneaking into the kitchens?” 

Angie’s dejection slipped right down the drain and she matched Peggy’s smile. “You’re not afraid of getting caught?”

Peggy rolled her eyes and scoffed, “Please, I’ve infiltrated far more secure places than the Griffith kitchen.”

“Like what?” Angie asked, intrigued.

“That’s a story for another time,” Peggy said, pushing off the bed and holding a hand out to Angie. “Right now, we have a mission. Are you ready?”

“Oh, are we playing secret agents?” Angie asked bemusedly, laying a playful, contemplative finger on her chin.

Something inscrutable flashed on Peggy’s face. She recovered quickly and beckoned Angie to take her hand, smile in place.

She probably should have resisted. If they were caught in the Griffith kitchens at- she glanced over at the clock - eleven p.m., they would be evicted before she could say “happy birthday.” She took Peggy’s hand.

They scrambled putting on their shoes, and Angie darted into her room for a recipe.

She reconsidered her secret agents comment as Peggy emerged from her room backwards, looking over her shoulder with almost chilling focus. She closed her door slowly, and it locked without a sound.

“You got a history sneaking around that I don’t know about, English?” Angie whispered.

Peggy froze, and Angie  _ seriously _ reconsidered her secret agents comment. “Remind me to tell you about my old principal,” Peggy murmured, then pressed a finger to her lips. Her eyes glinted in the dark hallway like a cat’s. A shiver ran down Angie’s spine. “I’ll go first, follow close behind me,” she said, reaching for Angie’s hand.

Angie took it eagerly.

Peggy led her down the hallway, footsteps utterly silent on the thin carpeting, making Angie feel downright clumsy in comparison as her own footsteps seemed to reverb off every surface. She kept her eyes on the back of Peggy’s head as they crept along, Peggy gripping her hand tighter than was really necessary. If she weren’t putting every ounce of effort in trying to be as silent as possible she might’ve overthought it.

They started down the stairs and Peggy’s footsteps still managed to be completely quiet. Not a creak or a tap, as if she had rendered herself weightless and the hand Angie held was an illusion, a mirage.

Her heart plummeted in her chest as she caught a glimpse of shining silver, expecting Ms. Fry in her curlers to come hurtling up the stairs, but it was just a lamp glinting innocently on the wall. They’d almost reached the lobby and the moonlight streaming in through the giant glass doors bathed the bottom of the stairs in blue and silver.

Peggy held up a hand and Angie stopped just before the wall ended, just out of sight like a child. She watched as Peggy craned over the railing, peering down into the lobby.

Usually Ms. Fry waited up to scold the stragglers: girls coming in past curfew with hunched shoulders and their heads down, boyfriends risking her wrath rather than climbing up a drainpipe (as if it were the better option of the two), and, well, girls doing exactly what Angie and Peggy were; sneaking into the kitchen after hours.

“Clear,” Peggy said, and they continued downward. The blinds were all down, but Angie couldn’t help but feel exposed in her nightgown in the chill of the empty lobby. “Quickly now.”

They scurried across the floor, keeping close to the wall until they reached the dining room, and eventually the kitchen.

The swinging doors creaked and they slipped into the dark room. The tips of Angie’s fingers tingled.

“Alright,” Peggy said, approaching the drawers beside two ovens, one on top of the other. They loomed in the dark, but this was Angie’s territory-- nothing intimidated her here. “I suppose we should find ingredients first?”

Angie nodded, and squinted at the recipe. Her Ma’s handwriting was already illegible in decent light.

“Here, let me try,” Peggy said, holding a hand out for it.

“Your funeral.”

Peggy glanced over it. “D’you reckon Ms. Fry even keeps these things? The food here hardly suggests a healthy pantry.”

“You got a gift, Peg,” Angie said incredulously, “Ma’s writing’s more inscrutable than those German codes pre-Turing to me. Only Dad can read it on a bad day.”

She could’ve sworn Peggy’s mouth twitched when she mentioned Turing. “Yes, well, deciphering handwriting is a necessary skill when you work with the people I do.” She cleared her throat. “Sugar?”

“Yes, honey?” Angie said, tossing back a wink and thrilling at Peggy’s flush. She yanked open the pantry doors and looked over the shelves for the baking supplies Ms. Fry kept for holidays. “Sugar…” she muttered, and reached for the bag.

“Flour?” Peggy’s voice was notably higher than usual.

“Check!” Angie replied, taking it down as well. She placed both of them on the counter and returned to the pantry.

Angie darted about the kitchen, plucking ingredients from the pantry and refrigerator, their voices hushed in the cavernous kitchen. Peggy dug around in drawers searching for measuring cups and whisks while Angie melted margarine.  _ It’s an offense,  _ Angie scoffed,  _ I thought the war was over and people were using butter again _ . Angie took care of the actual baking - the one time she let Peggy cook their lunch she managed to set fire to pasta - while Peggy handed her the occasional utensil and kept Angie smiling wide enough to hurt as she stirred and poured and whisked.

Peggy might have been suspiciously good at sneaking around after dark, and a tragically incapable baker, but Angie couldn’t have been happier cooking for any Martinelli birthday than she was that night, baking for Carol in 3A.


	26. "You wound me"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Mirror x “You take my breath away. It’s only fair that I return the favor.”
> 
> TW stitches/injury

Peggy had had some bad ideas in her time at the S.S.R.. Few and far between, certainly, but it happened on occasion. Breaking Dottie out of jail and proceeding to send only her and - as much as she respected him - Jarvis into a sensitive operation might have been one of them.

“Want me to kill him?” Dottie said through the radio.

“Do not kill him!” Peggy and Daniel responded in unison. Somehow, Thompson landed an invite to the Arena Club party, and Peggy had to be running one of the riskiest missions of her career right under his nose.

“That’s it-” Peggy muttered. She braced her hands on the table and pushed herself up, ignoring the agonizing pain in her abdomen. Getting impaled was up there with bullet wounds on the worst-pain-she-had-ever-experienced scale.

“Peggy, what are you doing?” Daniel asked flatly, leveling her with his signature this-is-stupid eyebrow raise.

“Going in there and-  _ Ah _ -” she winced, a hand shooting to the wound. “Assessing the situation.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Do you have a better one?”

“Jarvis is with her, if things go sideways he’ll let us know.”

“Yes, well, ‘sideways’ with Dottie could be anywhere from peeving off the wrong member of the wait staff to instigating an international conflict,” Peggy said, placing a defiant hand on her hip. “She is my responsibility, as is Doctor Wilkes, whose very corporeal presence is at stake here.”

Daniel sighed. “Fine. What’re you planning on wearing, ‘cause I doubt that blouse is gonna cut it- as nice as it is.”

“I’ll figure something out,” Peggy said, and ducked out of the van before he could argue.

Event halls had lost and found stations, apparently. Peggy found a dress buried beneath several layers of coats and accessories. It was a size too big, maybe two. Based on how the night was going so far, Peggy was hardly surprised. The forest green didn’t suit her at all, but she didn’t have the time to mourn her fashionable transgression- for all she knew Jack could already be dead. Dottie liked to tease, but Peggy knew better than to make assumptions where she was concerned.

So she pulled a veiled hat low over her eyes and pushed open a side door into the party. Trusting the dim lighting, she skirted along the wall, half-limping and clutching her side as she searched the crowd for dark hair tucked under a red hat. Or worse, a blond body in a pool of blood.

“Well hello there, darling.” A man stepped into Peggy’s path and she halted abruptly, sending a jolt of pain through her abdomen. A meaty hand was shoved toward her. “Care for a dance?”

“I’m afraid I’m spoken for,” she said, slipping into a coy American accent. She lowered her hat and ducked around him, sliding behind a pillar and out of his line of vision.

Peggy risked a glance up, scanning the dance floor for Dottie or Jarvis until her eyes landed on a slim figure swanning up the stairs on the opposite side of the room, black skirt floating gracefully behind. She cursed. If she was going to make it over before Dottie reached the top she’d have to cross the dance floor in plain sight.

“Dottie!” Peggy hissed into her microphone.

Dottie stopped and laid a gloved hand on the banister. “Peg! You change your mind?” she said. She looked off somewhere to her right, her formal attire adding to the visage of an actress on a movie poster.

Hearing her voice so close while clearly seeing her across the room gave Peggy the crawling feeling that she was being led into a trap, like Dottie was the bait; a little light she was meant to follow as someone waited right behind her to snake their arms around her waist and yank her into the shadows.

“Continue up the stairs and enter the first bathroom you find. I’ll meet you there in five minutes.”

“How naughty, Peggy! A proper lady would at least buy me dinner first…”

Jarvis coughed through the intercom.

Peggy rolled her eyes. When Dottie finally went up the rest of the stairs, she sprang into motion, forgoing subtlety and hurrying around the pillars circling the dance floor. Her side burned and protested with each step, and she had to stop when she finally reached the landing. Face turned toward the wall, she took a deep, shaky breath, and started up the stairs.

The bathroom was mercifully, the first door on the right. She pushed inside, leaning on the door for support, ignoring Dottie’s sly smile at her predicament.

“What’s this about?” Dottie asked, leaning back against a sink. “You don’t trust me?”

“I need to keep a closer eye on you now that we have another variable to keep track of,” Peggy said, shifting her weight off her left side. She winced.

“Oh? I thought Jeeves was in charge of that. He not a big, bad enough watchdog to keep me under control?” Dottie said. “After all, you’re hurt. It would be all too easy for me to...” Dottie pushed off the sink and approached Peggy, eyes dropping down to Peggy’s left hip.

Peggy took an instinctive step back and her back hit a wall. She inhaled sharply as Dottie pressed close enough that Peggy could smell her borrowed perfume. “For you to what, Dottie? No matter what you try, your necklace-”

“My necklace what?” Dottie said, lifting her chin and smiling down at Peggy beneath her lashes. The necklace was gone.

“How on-”

“Come on, you really thought that thing would stop me?” Dottie’s hands found Peggy’s sides. They skimmed down, feather light, until her thumb pressed dangerously close to the rebar hole in Peggy’s abdomen; already stretched and screaming as she stood as tall as she could.

“Peggy, did she dismantle the necklace somehow?” came Daniel’s voice in her ear. “Get out of there, she could-”

“It’s fine, Daniel,” Peggy said through gritted teeth, locking eyes with Dottie. “She can’t do anything to me here.”

“Want to bet?” Dottie murmured, thumb inching closer to the wound until Peggy gasped.

“Miss Carter, are you alright?” Jarvis asked.

“She’s just fine, Jeeves,” Dottie said, pressing closer still until her hips pressed right into Peggy’s and her knees went weak with the pain.

“Dottie, stop this-” Peggy gasped, pushing Dottie away by the shoulders with both hands.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Dottie said. The pain lessened as Dottie’s hands leapt up to grip Peggy’s wrists. “Not anymore than you already are, that is. Poor Agent Carter. I don’t think her body can take much more. How about you, Danny boy?”

“Peggy-”

Before Daniel could finish, deft fingers released Peggy’s wrist and plucked the earpiece from her ear, then snatched it up again before she could so much as blink.

Peggy could think of a dozen ways to get out of Dottie’s hold: hook her leg around her ankle and yank her foot out from under her, twist her arms around and force Dottie front-first into the wall, even a good headbutt would do the trick. But any and all tactics she could use would rip her stitches, and she’d bleed out before Daniel or Jarvis could reach her. Helplessness seized her, squeezing so tight she could hardly breathe.

“How long do you think we have in here before he comes crashing in to save the day, hm? He’s so  _ noble _ , I don’t know how you stomach it,” Dottie said, lifting Peggy’s wrist up to eye level. She traced her knuckles down Peggy’s cheek, head tilted, chin pointed forward as if preparing for a kiss. She was so close all Peggy could see were her pale eyes; so light, too reminiscent of Angie’s gray-blue eyes. The comparison sickened her. What right did Dottie Underwood - empty, harsh, sadistic Dottie Underwood - have to remind Peggy of her spitfire best friend?

She made a noise low in her throat, a shallow breath with a guttural edge she hoped lacerated Dottie’s ears.

“You take my breath away, Peg,” Dottie purred, unaffected. “You really found  _ this _ in the lost and found?” Her eyes drifted up and down Peggy’s dress, resting on her chest for a moment extra. She wrenched Peggy’s wrists down, pinning them to the wall at her sides.

Over Dottie’s shoulder, she could make out their reflection in the mirrors. Dottie, already taller than her, towered over her in her heels, her smirk a twisted snarl in profile view. And she saw herself, shrinking beneath Dottie, wrists white in Dottie’s grip as she wriggled futilely. The poise she prided herself on was nowhere to be seen.

Hate bubbled hot in her chest. She had never truly hated Dottie before-- at least no differently than she hated other marks. Their cat-and-mouse game was different from others, but only in the sense that she knew Dottie was more dangerous than any other target - it was charged, she was desperate. Now it was personal.

“This is what you choose to do with your one chance at freedom?” Peggy spat, hands curling into fists. “If this had gone well I could have arranged for your deportation. You really think the people holding your leash would tolerate a deserter? You know better than I do that there are a hundred more of you waiting to come and bring you back regardless of whether you live to make the trip.”

“You wound me, Peggy,” Dottie said, gaze lazy, not even meeting Peggy’s. She guided Peggy’s hand back over her hip. “But I can wound you too, remember.”

White hot fire shot up through her body and she cried out as Dottie pressed Peggy’s own thumb nail into her wound. Her knees wobbled as waves of pain washed over her whole body. She wanted to fall, she would have collapsed had Dottie not been holding her up.

“Come on, Peg, don’t you want it to stop?” Dottie said in her ear.

Peggy’s hands were beginning to tingle and go numb as Dottie’s grip on her wrists tightened, but she threw her head back and bit the inside of her lip. She could feel Dottie’s breath on her neck, her own chest heaving against Dottie’s, and blood beginning to trickle down her hip, all syncopated in the cacophonous roar of pain as her stitches popped one by one.

“All you have to do is ask.” Dottie’s lips travelled down, hovering over Peggy’s jaw.

Just as her mouth brushed the hollow of Peggy’s neck, the door burst open and Jarvis launched himself between them, throwing Dottie into the opposite wall.

“Mister Jarvis,” Peggy murmured, relief flooding her. She slumped against the wall, the room blurring.

“Miss Carter!” Jarvis swam in Peggy’s vision. His voice was distorted, as if coming from underwater. A kind pair of hands grasped Peggy’s arms, gentler, warmer. Her head felt heavy.

“M-Mister Jarvis. Thank heavens…”

Her knees buckled beneath her, and the world went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another one of my favorites oops


	27. "Okay"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Sick x We fell asleep on the couch together by accident, how did my hand end up in your hair? Were you breathing on my neck?! (Why did I get tingly?????)

Angie had imagined running her hands through Peggy’s beautiful curls more times than she cared to admit. She pictured gently scraping with her nails, soothing her after a long day. She pictured gripping Peggy’s hair, both hands fisted in it while it tickled the insides of her thighs, so tight it hurt to uncurl her fingers. That particular fantasy included some other parts of her as well, so Angie saved it for really crappy days-- days when she could blame her wandering thoughts on that last glass of schnapps rather than admitting that inviting Peggy to the Griffith had probably been one of her best and worst ideas ever.

In none of her imaginings, however, did Angie picture sitting upright on Peggy’s bed, back against the wall, running gentle fingers through Peggy’s hair as Peggy curled up with her head in Angie’s lap, skin hot and feverish against her knuckles. Peggy did not get sick. She’d come into the automat on rainy days drenched and exhausted and showed up the next day perfectly sprightly. She ate far more than befitted her stature and job (how much exercise could she possibly be getting at the phone company to justify that third slice of pie?) and had never complained of a stomach ache for as long as Angie had known her.

But there she lay, curled up so tight her feet stayed inside the confines of the twin bed despite laying horizontally across it, elbows tucked in, beads of sweat rolling slowly down her forehead.

Angie wiped one away just before it dripped into her eye and Peggy flinched at the sudden touch. Her heart ached at the look on Peggy’s face: so vulnerable, so uncomfortable-- her eyes scrunched closed, making herself as small as possible as if trying to fold up and disappear.

Angie’s legs began to tingle and go numb. To distract herself she slowly traced the tip of her finger along Peggy’s exposed cheekbone.

Peggy moaned and Angie immediately pulled back, only for her to groan again in protest. “Don’t stop,” she rasped.

“Okay,” Angie said softly. She resumed her progress down Peggy’s cheek and up over her pointed nose. Peggy’s skin was pale, and clammy to the touch as she brushed the curve of her finger along her forehead. Selfishly, she was grateful Peggy was too tired to keep her eyes open. If she could see Angie she might recognize the utter infatuation on her face. Some part of her knew that even if Peggy could see, she wouldn’t notice how Angie felt about her. She hadn’t bothered trying to hide it for months, but Peggy was either more oblivious than a blind Scarlett O’Hara, or she wasn’t interested in Angie. So she told herself that Peggy’s display of trust, of swallowing her pride and letting Angie take care of her, would have to be enough. Her fingers tracing Peggy’s lovely features would have to be enough, even if she could never mark the same path with soft kisses. 

Another piteous noise from Peggy alerted Angie that her fingers had stilled on Peggy’s face, and they hovered somewhere near her chin; just below her lip. It was going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one is short!


	28. “Come on, out with it.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Break-in x “These bruises are fresh. Why won’t you tell me who’s doing this to you?”

Angie was going to kill her one of these days. Not like Dottie meant to, or how the man Peggy had clocked upside the head with, well, a clock, the other day had tried to. No, Peggy knew Angie was going to kill her on their first night in Howard’s penthouse: the first time Angie flopped down on the couch in a silky blue robe she had never worn at the Griffith. Her robes were much like Peggy’s: an assortment of silk and cotton varied in modesty, and they draped across Angie in a way silk didn’t drape across anyone else. Maybe it was the firelight flickering across the shiny fabric as they read together, or maybe it was that Angie fully extended herself across the couch, showcasing the dip of her waist and lean curves of her calves; relaxed as she flipped through the script for  _ The Captive _ \- one of her favorite plays (the look Angie gave her when she brought it up was pointed, but Peggy had no idea what she was meant to understand). Something about the silk’s gentle sheen accentuated Angie’s collarbones, pronounced as her shoulders canted inward. Books suddenly took Peggy a lot longer to finish.

It did not help matters that Angie also sported the only cry-eyes that ever worked on Peggy, or that she managed to make Peggy laugh when she least wanted to. Not to mention her unshakable ambition and wit sharp enough to match her ineludible, observant eyes. 

Angie snuck leftover pie home every Friday.  _ Mal would have thrown ‘em out otherwise, _ she claimed, _ Besides, Junie makes enough to feed an army on Saturdays _ . Peggy didn’t object. The plate of pie at her elbow made focusing on her book even harder as they read together in the comforting glow of the fireplace. So her gaze drifted around the room as she chewed, skimming across the bookshelf, making a mental note of all the books she needed to get rid of. The grandfather clock, probably curated from some priceless art exhibition. The empty space above the mantle where Howard’s portrait had been.

Angie’s face the first time she saw it floated into Peggy’s head. Her lips tugged into a smile around the mouthful of pie, and she swallowed quickly to avoid spitting cherry filling everywhere.

“What’s got you so happy, English?” Angie was looking up at her over her book, a small smile on her face.

“Nothing-” Peggy coughed, cheeks growing hot.

“Come on, out with it.”

“Remember the day we moved in?”

“It was a month ago, English. What about it’s got you so excited?” Angie laid down her book, resting her elbow on the arm of the couch to face her.

“That awful portrait of Howard-” Peggy nodded to the empty bit of wall, “I can’t imagine why he elected to cover the penthouse in them.”

Angie snorted. “Oh God, it was the first thing I told my Ma, that thing was downright creepy. But you gotta admire his self esteem.”

“I most certainly do not,” Peggy scoffed, “His ‘self esteem’ has put Jarvis and I through the wringer more times than I can count.”

“Well, however many wringers he puts you through, you better pop back up, ‘cause I don’t fancy going house hunting twice in two months.” Angie pushed herself up. She winced.

“Something wrong?”

“Not at all,” she said, rubbing her bicep.

Peggy closed her book and raised an expectant brow.

“Really, Peg, it’s nothing.” Angie scooped up her own teacup and Peggy’s empty plate, and headed for the kitchen. Peggy followed her with her eyes as she brushed the doorway and promptly hissed in pain.

“That doesn’t sound like nothing,” Peggy called back at her.

Angie didn’t answer.

Peggy let it be until Angie returned to the living room and sat back down. She lowered herself gingerly, putting significant space between her left arm and the couch cushion. Peggy rose and knelt beside her, and held out her hands. “Show me.”

Angie looked at her reluctantly and slowly brought herself to a seated position. She shrugged the robe off her shoulder and turned to the side, exposing an angry red streak Peggy instantly recognized as a bullet graze.

She inhaled sharply and took Angie’s forearm, gently brushing her fingertips along the skin near the wound. It wasn’t infected, but the surrounding skin was swollen, and Angie flinched when Peggy’s fingers got too close.

“Why on Earth didn’t you say anything?” she said, looking at Angie incredulously.

Angie looked away, biting the inside of her lip. “Figured you’re the one running off all derring do, you get injured enough for the both of us.”

“Angie, that’s ludicrous,” Peggy said, releasing her arm. “I’ll be back in a minute, don’t go anywhere.” She turned on her heel and speed-walked the whole way to the bathroom, head spinning a mile a minute.

How in the world did Angie get shot? The horrible thought dawned on her that maybe an operative had found her, maybe someone targeting Peggy had decided to pursue Angie to get to her. Her stomach twisted, and she knocked a pill bottle off the shelf with shaking hands. The bathroom blurred. What if moving in with Angie had been a mistake? She should have learned after Colleen, after Dottie. What if she was putting Angie in harm’s way? She snatched a roll of bandages and some disinfectant and hurried back to the living room. She knelt once again before Angie, shifting her knees to the side and taking Angie’s arm.

“What happened?” she asked.

Angie’s shoulders slumped. “Fella came into the automat a bit before I got off. He came up and sat at the bar, kept his head down. We get a lotta folks like that around closing, but when I got within six feet of him he looked at me like I was coming down with something. Once the last person left, the guy waited for me to get near him again and pulled a gun on me.” Angie shivered, and Peggy’s stomach filled with hot venom. “He told me to get all the money from the safe in back, said he’d shoot anyone who tried to stop him, but his hands shook like my cousins trying to play gangster with the boys down at the dock. I figured he wouldn’t shoot, but I put my hands up anyway and tried a’ talk him down.” She shuddered again and her face crumpled. Her shoulders began to shake and Peggy’s hands wrapping her bicep stilled. “He put a bullet in the wall right below the kitchen window and it just grazed me- I didn’t feel it at all at first, but once Mal heard the shot he called the cops.”

“Did you get a good look at him?” Peggy said, fighting to keep her voice steady.

“Yeah, I described him to two different cops and they said he’s pulled the same garbage in a couple of other places.”

“What did he look like?”

Angie looked down at her warily. “Don’t be getting any ideas, English, I know that look.”

“There’s no  _ look _ .”

“Oh yes there is, you’ve got the same look on your face as you got when you sat and plotted with Mr. Fancy pretending no one else could see.”

Peggy made an indignant noise halfway between a scoff and an ‘oh,’ rolling her eyes up at the ceiling. “I’m not getting  _ ideas, _ Angie, I just want to keep tabs on the investigation.”

“If I ever believe that nonsense, do me a favor and shoot me again.”

_ “Angie!” _

“I don’t get why you’re so invested in this,” Angie said, pulling her arm out of Peggy’s grip. “I’m fine.”

“You’re  _ fine _ ,” Peggy said. She rose to her feet and looked down at Angie, arms folded, the venom in her stomach bubbling higher and higher. “You can barely move your arm, Angie, forgive me for wanting to bring this fiend to justice.”

“I think that’s a bit dramatic.”

“Oh,  _ I’m _ dramatic for being upset that my closest friend has been shot! As if you acting all despondent is any better? What am I to expect next week, rope burns?”

“I ain’t the one who showed up to the automat with a slash in my leg and said it was a broken heel,” Angie said coldly, standing up and meeting Peggy’s gaze. Her eyes smoldered with that suppressed rage and confusion that hit Peggy like a kick to the chest.

“That’s different,” Peggy said. She felt itchy and hot. Something clawed at her insides, something insistent and afraid-- like a thousand birds’ wings a flurry in her stomach.

“Why, because you’re all noble and got it fighting some commie supervillain?”

“Because I’m acclimated to this sort of thing! Injury is a workplace hazard for me! You should be safe at the automat, unless you’ve got a Hydra operation hidden beneath the floor that I don’t know about.”

“You can’t protect me every minute of the day,  _ Agent Carter _ , so unless you plan on keeping me on a leash, you better get a handle on this hero complex of yours,” Angie spat.

Peggy’s face fell.

Angie’s expression softened the tiniest bit, but her fists remained tight at her sides. “What, you think I can’t take care of myself?”

“Not the way being close to me requires you to,” Peggy said, voice cracking. Her eyes, betraying her, stung. “I doubt there’s a soul in this city who is truly prepared enough.”

The image of Colleen, poor, sweet, soft Colleen, with a bullet hole in the center of her forehead, coalesced in her head.

“It’s my fault Colleen is dead, do you really think I could live with myself if you got hurt?” Peggy said. Hot tears slid down her cheeks. “If you were listening in on Mister Jarvis and I, you heard me tell him I have a habit of losing the people closest to me. People I got killed because I was thick enough to let them help me. So excuse me for worrying when you get injured, other times I haven’t and people died.”

“English-”

“I’m putting you at risk by even associating with you, much less living with you-- you’re going to become a target and I’ll have to bear the consequences if something happens to you!”

“Peg-”

Peggy cupped Angie’s face in her hands, thumbs resting on her cheeks, fingertips at the base of her neck, and looked over her face: her eyes, welling with tears, her soft honey-blonde hair drifting gently about her forehead, her concerned, open, heart-wrenching expression so close Peggy could feel her breathe.

“Peggy,” Angie said softly, fingers coming up to gently encircle Peggy’s wrists. “You can’t be afraid forever. ‘Cause I’m not going anywhere no matter how many commie assassins come after you.” The confused wrinkle between her eyebrows appeared. She dropped her hands and took a step back from Peggy. “I’ve never seen you push away Mr. Fancy like this, and you’ve got other friends in that agency of yours.” Bitterness overtook her expression, and her voice rose. “Heck, you’re living in Howard’s apartment, and he’s already got everyone he’s ever talked to on his ass. Why’s this getting to you so much? I seem weak to you?”

That insistent something roared up in Peggy’s stomach, engulfing her entire body as Angie took yet another step back, hurt and irritation in the twist of her mouth.

“I grew up around Italian gangs, Peg, I can take care of myself. I been telling you that for months, why’re you so worried about me all of a sudden.”

“Because I can’t lose you, Angie,” Peggy said weakly. “I love you.”

Angie’s mouth fell open. The tension fell from her shoulders and Peggy felt that creature screaming inside her as the cogs in Angie’s head turned.

“Well, what on Earth took you so long?” Angie said, finally.

“What?” Peggy blinked. The creature tilted its head, shrinking like a flame covered by a glass.

“You seriously didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?”

“You asked me to move in with you, Peg. I thought you just wanted to take things slow.”

“So you-”

“Yes, English, I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *something about the silk's gentle sheen accentuated Angie's collarbones
> 
> hint: It's the combination of texture and shading variation drawing a distinct contrast between stark highlights and shadows (silk) and softer shade transitions (skin) that makes silk so flattering especially in specifically aimed light
> 
> Sorry, I draw and couldn't resist


	29. “Penny for your thoughts?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Early morning (aurora) x Imagine your OTP in a hammock

_ Poison shot through Peggy. It raced through her wrist, up her arm, it consumed her hand, everywhere it spread swelling like her veins were about to pop. _

_ She cried out and looked up into Whitney’s eyes, cold as her name, but wide, and afraid. Whitney’s grip tightened on her wrist and the black spidered out even faster. The zero matter coursed up her arm, overrunning her blood, pushing out, seeping into her flesh, struggling upwards as if to break the surface of her skin and explode her forearm into black sludge. _

_ With her remaining faculties, Peggy headbutted Whitney hard. Whitney coughed and staggered, and Peggy took the opportunity to kick her square in the stomach, the momentum sending herself rocketing backwards. She hurtled through the metal barrier and into open air. She dropped, and, still reeling, her hand shot out and grabbed the ledge. _

_ Before she could pull herself up, Whitney stepped forward, looking down at her venomously. “Oh, I’m sorry, Agent Carter. Not everyone’s cut out for Hollywood.” She knelt down and reached for Peggy’s hand, unflinching. No. Anything but that. She would not survive more of that blinding pain. _

_ Peggy let go. A brief fall, and she slammed into the concrete below. Her head struck solid cement and pain tore through her abdomen. Dizzy and disoriented, she slowly brought her head up, her hand coming to rest on her left hip. Right where a thick spike protruded clean through her. _

Peggy woke gasping, hands flying to her side. She struggled up, fabric entangling her arms until she toppled right over the side of the hammock, landing unceremoniously on the concrete below with an “Oomf” and a shot of agony through her side. She propped herself up on an elbow, winced, and quickly sat up, rubbing the back of her head. Dawn bathed the groggy pool deck in blue. Slow-moving clouds cast shadows on the rippling water, and the smell of chlorine finally broke her from her panic.

She closed her eyes and tempered her breathing, focusing on the steady hum of the pool filtration system and the high, clear chirping of songbirds up in the trees as the pain ebbed.

“Mm- Peg?” came a raspy voice.

Peggy looked up. Angie peered over the side of the hammock, blinking sleep out of her eyes.

“What’re you doing down there?”

“Fell,” Peggy said, and got to her feet. “Go back to sleep, darling, I’ll be back in a minute.”

Angie hummed and flopped back down, the hammock swinging with her.

Peggy smiled fondly at her before turning and heading into the house.

She returned with her tea shortly after to find Angie already asleep. She hoisted one of the deck chairs - so as to not wake Angie again with the scraping - under her good arm and set it down beside the hammock. Peggy sat and held her tea close to her chest, enjoying the heat.

She and Angie had meant to spend a little while reading in the hammock, just for an hour or so, but the sweet summer night air and the silent wobbling glow of the water on their entwined legs lulled them to sleep.

Peggy stared, unseeing, into her teacup. Since Angie flew in two weeks prior, her nightmares had largely abated. Usually the warmth of her body curled around Peggy’s eased her sleep, granted her respite from her thoughts and memories; but even with Angie’s head resting in the crook of Peggy’s neck and her arm tossed over Peggy’s waist, memories of Whitney Frost and the zero matter permeated Peggy’s thoughts. For a second, black spindles shot up her arm bracing the teacup, and Peggy shuddered.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Angie was awake again, and leaning on her folded arms looking at Peggy.

Peggy started and shook her head. “No, it’s nothing. Just… remembered something.”

Angie raised an eyebrow.

“From the fiasco before you arrived,” she conceded, “The day I got…” She looked down at her hip.

“It still hurting you?”

“Yes-” She winced as she accidentally rested her teacup over the wound. “Jarvis expects it’ll hurt for at least another month or two.”

The rough fabric rasped as Angie climbed out of the hammock. She stretched, then yanked a chair over beside Peggy and rested her head on Peggy’s shoulder. Her hair whispered against Peggy’s neck as she got comfortable, and she looped her arm through Peggy’s free one. “That mean we’re sticking around here another two months?” she murmured, plucking Peggy’s teacup from her hand and taking a sip. Peggy felt her grimace and shove the teacup back. “I always forget how sweet you take your tea, English.”

“It’s one spoonful, darling. And-” Peggy elbowed her gently. “We wouldn’t have this problem if you made your own tea instead of stealing mine every morning.”

“Hey, I made you a year’s worth a’ coffee at the automat, I think I’m entitled to a bit of your tea,” Angie said, and took the cup right back. She drank deeply and grimaced again, ducking into Peggy’s shoulder. “I deserve this,” she muttered.

Peggy laughed until it hurt.


	30. “It was hard to miss”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Clean x “Did you get my note?” “Of course I got it. You taped it to my forehead while I was sleeping.”

“You get my note, Peg?” 

There was the sound of keys clattering in the dish by the door and heels being kicked off in the entryway. A moment later Angie’s head popped in and Peggy looked up from her book, quirking one eyebrow.

“It was hard to miss,” she deadpanned, but she laid her book on the table and watched Angie shrug off her coat.

On days like today Peggy had to remind herself that she loved her roommate and would not trade her for anything in the world. After all, she’d braved flatmates with worse habits than leaving notes in the morning, even if they were in her room. On her face.

“I tell ya’ Peg, if I look at another dish today I’ll scream. Some kid had a birthday at the L&L, which strikes me as a little sad.” Angie’s typical inscrutable-situation nose-crinkle appeared.

The reverence with which the SSR regarded Peggy after Howard’s treason scare had long since faded, but even preceding the new layer of repute the agents knew that Agent Carter was stiff as steel; so Peggy didn’t quite know how to feel about how absolutely assentive she was around Angie.

She smiled in a way that felt compulsory and utterly uncontrollable as Angie talked. That indignant section reserved in her chest for just such occasions as notes left on her forehead as she slept felt pleasantly light and empty. She couldn’t remember why she had been irritated.

“So did you do the dishes?” Angie said, eyes flicking over to the doorway that led to the kitchen.

Several beats passed as Peggy’s brain corroborated the warm, hazy Angie shirking her coat from a few seconds ago with the one blinking down at her. “Sorry?”

“The dishes, Peg. I know you had a late night but we had a deal.” Angie folded her arms. “And I had a whole plan for tonight.” Peggy felt guiltier than she ever had when her mother hastled her for avoiding chores.

“Of course, it’s Wednesday.“ She stood up and met Angie’s eyes apologetically. “You were going to make your mother’s focaccia,” she said.

A little disappointment wormed its way into the frustration on Angie’s face: her eyes went soft but her mouth pulled into a frown, trying to weigh down the anger rapidly escaping her. The resulting expression was even more frustrated than before, and Angie let out a breath, conceding defeat.

“You gotta pull out the eyes, huh,” she said, and Peggy knew she was forgiven. A rather unnecessary amount of relief washed over her as Angie took her hand and pulled her toward the kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one's short!


	31. "I've got him!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Comfort x “Please! You have to let me make this right.”

The air left Peggy’s lungs as she dove front-first in the dirt and gravel. She reached for the hose rapidly slipping away like a garden snake up into the roaring rift in the sky. She snatched it and scrambled to her feet. She squinted at Daniel.

He was pulled completely vertically, upside down, hair flapping in his eyes, yet still turning the lever, damn him.

Her heels dug into the dirt and she jerked forward as a body thumped against her back. Arms locked around her waist and she was pulled back. A voice shouted something behind her, but her focus was on Daniel, now with only one hand on the lever. Her feet skidded forward and she gripped the hose tighter.

“Are you alright, Peg!” yelled Howard, spitting her hair out of his mouth.

“I’ve got him!” she called back. She cursed her heels and her shaking arms and legs, pure adrenaline maintaining her vice-grip on the hose.

“Peggy! Let go!” Daniel said, waving his free arm.

“No, Daniel, hold on!” Peggy’s vision blurred in the hot sun.

A car screeched to a stop somewhere behind her

Her hands were growing sweaty. She could only hold on so much longer.

Jarvis, Howard, and Dr. Samberly shouted to one another, but all Peggy could hear was her own labored breathing and blood roaring in her ears. She looked up at Daniel flailing in midair and tried to clear her vision. She focused on his face, panicked, and grunted with effort as a mechanical whine filled the air.

Howard’s hover car bobbed above their heads. Her mouth dropped open as it was sucked into the rift--

There was the horrible sound of snapping rubber, Peggy stumbled backwards into the dirt with an unpleasant thud. Her whole body trembled.

“Sousa!” came Jack’s voice.

She looked up. Her eyes followed the hose-- to where it cut off halfway to the generator. Frayed, singed rubber, pulled thin and translucent like hard candy, melted in the dusty ground. The other end was nowhere in sight.

Peggy staggered to her feet, heart still racing, and scanned the area. Maybe in the explosion Daniel had been cast further away with the debris. Maybe he’d been thrown up and into a window, and he’d taken the other half of the hose with him still wrapped around his waist. But there was no shattered glass to be found. The debris cut off not ten feet from where the rift had been, and the only indication it had existed in the first place was an eerie ring of windblown, pale dirt.

She made a low sound halfway between a grunt and a gasp and shifted forward, unstable in her heels. She braced a shaking hand on the generator and peered around the other side. Daniel wasn’t there either.

“No,” she muttered, and looked up into the sky. Clear and blue, the dreamy California infinity looked down at her, disinterested. “No,” she mumbled again, shaking spots out of her eyes. She regurgitated the dread out of her stomach.  _ No _ , no he was not gone. Her knees gave way beneath her. She hit the ground, unfeeling, exhausted as she looked up into the unforgiving sky. “Daniel!” she shouted, the words grating up her throat, hoarse. “Daniel!” The sky blurred.

A pair of gentle, shaking arms wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her backward into a thin chest. Jarvis.

“No, no, get off-” Peggy pulled forward, shrugging his hands off, trying to stand.

“There’s nothing you can do,” he said in her ear.

“No,  _ no _ , I can make it right,” she mumbled, pushing against his arms, but they only wrapped tighter around her.

“He’s gone-”

“I can fix this, I- I will fix this,” Peggy muttered, her struggle growing weaker and weaker as the fight abandoned her body.

“He- he’s gone, Miss Carter,” Jarvis said. His voice was choked and the dread built in her stomach, and this time she was too fatigued to will it away. She shrank into Jarvis’ embrace, knees shaking.

“No, he’s-”

“He’s gone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! :)


	32. "Just be there!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Raven x “Well, technically I’m now driving a stolen car, chasing kidnappers, and I still haven’t had my first cup of coffee.” “Oh yeah, I see what you mean. I can’t get along without my coffee either.”

Jarvis probably should have come to expect phone calls from Peggy at all hours of the day after the first time, but it was Sunday and he had really been hoping for a lie-in, and the phone by his and Ana’s bed rang appallingly loudly. It would certainly wake Ana if he stayed in bed though, so he pushed the covers off himself with a grunt and picked it up off the hook with a bleary “Edwin Jarvis speaking.”

“Mister Jarvis!” rang out Peggy’s voice. He held the phone out from his ear and clapped a hand to the side of his head to steady himself.

“Miss Carter, what could have possibly gone wrong this early on a Sunday morning?” Jarvis whispered, eyes flicking to Ana who still slept peacefully with the ghost of a smile on her face.

“Remember that sting operation I said would be a one-and-done last night?” Peggy shouted. Peggy was moving very fast, or otherwise something was moving fast around her. Rushing wind if he was not mistaken, and she was yelling over it. Where she encountered rushing wind on a sting operation by the docks on the quietest night of the year, Jarvis had no idea and frankly didn’t want to know before his morning tea.

A raven landed in the garden box outside the window. He looked at it.

“Yes I do, is everything alright? Ana is asleep right now and she hasn’t been sleeping well recently, would you mind lowering your voice?”

“They knew about it!” Her voice was louder than before, and he had a feeling it was not out of necessity.

The raven was staring at him. 

He winced. “By the docks, yes?”

“By the bank!”

“How in the world did you get-”

“Just be there!” She hung up.

Jarvis sighed and set the phone down on the hook. He looked up.

The raven was still looking at him. The sun was not even fully up yet, and there wasn’t enough light to reflect in its beady eyes, so they just looked like inky buttons, like a stuffed animal’s.

Jarvis blinked.

The raven blinked back.

Suddenly, it let out an unearthly squawk and took off into the sky, and Jarvis started. Black feathers floated down and into his meticulous window box.

He hadn’t even gotten to have his morning tea.


	33. “You back, English?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Nervous x Sitting rigid, staring into space, almost seeming “zoned out”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: PTSD
> 
> PTSD formatting idea heavily referenced from RainbowRiddler’s work You Got It

A gramophone. How ridiculous. Angie found it in a closet somewhere.

“Didn’t wanna knock it over,” Howard had provided when Angie demanded to know why he’d hidden it, “Besides, I always liked the radio better. You should too, yours is all tweaked out thanks to yours truly. You should be thanking me.”

Peggy preferred the radio anyway. On the radio, she might hear a familiar name in the evening obits and she could slip into wartime melancholy without reservation. Most people (those with propriety, at least) talked cautiously about the war, like it was a bomb they’d just managed to disarm and could spring back to life if they sounded too fond. Peggy didn’t care to prod the bomb either, but sometimes a cup of tea and the familiar crackle of an ex-colonel’s voice lulled her into that nostalgia that was usually reserved for happier memories. As coping mechanisms went, romanticism was hardly the worst she’d heard of.

Tea in hand, the evening paper laid out on the table, Peggy sank into her armchair for the night’s listening. Angie was due home shortly, so she took the chance to embrace the quiet.

She cranked the dial on the radio and leaned back, one leg crossed over the other. She enjoyed the warmth of her teacup against her chest, but felt a tightness she didn’t understand until she tuned back into the broadcast.

The sound of planes zooming across the sky undercut the commentator’s jovial voice.

Biting back her bitter mutterings to no one, Peggy leaned forward again to change the channel only for the sound to mercifully stop and switch to listing names as per usual.

_ Right _ , this channel sorted through obits by cause of death. Dark, perhaps, but it helped make things feel less personal. Usually family members and friends died different deaths. There were fewer elegies of lifelong relationships being ripped apart on this channel.

Closing her eyes, she breathed out slowly and returned to the warm porcelain under her fingertips. She bent her head low over it and breathed in the gentle steam, the comforting smell of black tea soothing the twist in her chest.

She got through most of the front page with only a touch of restlessness tugging at the back of her heart, but when she flipped the page the broadcast returned from its commercial break.

_ Cracka-cracka-cracka-cracka-cracka. _ An air battle then. Gunshots followed by the roar of plane engines.

Her heart tugged in a little more, condensing like a stone and lodging in her throat.

The page blurred.

Planes soared, there was the hiss of landing gear.

_ And she was back in the cold command center. _

Her shoulders tensed, her elbows and knees contracted.

Studio-recorded mimicry of a bustling hanger joined roaring engines.

_ Her stomach was roiling, face wet with tears. The sound of static filled the room. _

Her calves and elbows started to hurt with the pressure.

“Private Brian Berkfield,” listed the commentator. “Nineteen. Baltimore, Maryland.”

_ It was bitingly quiet. The static filled her ears as her chest, her lungs contorted with grief. _

Her hands had begun to shake around the teacup, and she was drawn back to earth as hot liquid sloshed onto her bare knee. Body releasing slightly as she took stock of her surroundings, she realized her chest felt hard, she couldn’t  _ breathe _ .

“Sargent Anthony Lazlo, thirty five. Wheaton, Illinois.”

She could hear the gunfire outside the control center clear as day.

Setting down her teacup, she abruptly stood up, letting the newspaper drop to the floor. Frantic energy took over her body.

_ Gunshots rang out from outside the control center, and Peggy, curled over the microphone, shakily stood. The cold of the room overtook her, filling her up, blotting out the grief. _

She dashed for the door without a moment’s thought. Her heart raced.

She couldn’t get enough air.

Her lungs squeezed, her vision blurred.

_ Hot adrenaline and unsettling cold clashed and coalesced in her hands as they slung her rifle over her shoulder, unshaking. _

Fumbling for the knob, the door opened into her before she could get it to twist. Her hand leapt to her side, to a gun that was not there, she realized with hot fear until sea green entered her vision.

Garbled and muted, someone asked, “Peggy?”

_ Dread and fight hung in the hallway, air heavy with gunpowder and smoke as she strode through it, rifle fitted like home in the crook of her elbow. _

_ Grief-racked but too focused to breathe, her only concern was the Hydra agents gathering at the end of the hall, a group of sitting ducks. _

_ They fell as a group, riddled with bullets she fired. She didn’t hear them go off. _

“Peggy?”

Peggy’s back hit the wall and she sank to the floor, hands trembling. She reached to her side for a walkie-talkie and found smooth silk that abraded her fingers. Turn off the walkie-talkie and the sounds of roaring plane engines and gunshots and Steve’s voice cut off in a cruel burst of static would stop.

She buried her face in her knees. Her entire body trembled now, and when a gentle presence knelt before her she struck like lightning, foot shooting out and catching the presence’s ankle, sending them crashing to the floor.

The thud and following squeak only drove the noises further into Peggy’s head.

_ She turned another corner, and a group of men lined this one too. She lifted the rifle, finger pressing to the trigger, overloaded with gunsmoke and salty tears and the metallic tang of blood on the air when a large hand shoved the barrel down. She distantly heard her name, and the rifle was plucked from her hands. She scrambled for it and drove an elbow into Dugan’s side when his huge arms snaked around her. _

_ “Give it back!” she snarled, tears welling in her eyes. She blinked them back furiously and tried to recover the deadly (numbing) taste of blood in her mouth but found only sweet sweat and salty tears. _

When Peggy could feel things again, the first thing she registered was the blood-rush in her head clearing into a dim hallway.

She was leaning against something- someone, rather. Her cheek was pressed into a bony shoulder, and hair tickled her nose. A thumb stroked her bicep.

“Angie?” Speaking hurt. She felt like she’d been sick, acid scraping her stomach and throat.

“You back, English?” Angie shifted against her and a leg slid between their bodies, putting just enough distance between them for Peggy to remember how to breathe.

“Not yet,” she croaked, fingers finding the material of her own dressing gown. She squeezed a fistfull of it and then let it go, smoothing over the fabric with a shaky hand. “You didn’t have to sit with me.”

“This is where I want to be,” Angie said softly. “You want your tea? It’s probably cold now, but I could make you another cup.”

“That-” Peggy took in an unsteady breath. “I would appreciate that. Thank you Angie.”

Angie got up, and Peggy immediately missed the grounding warmth by her side. She paused with a hand on the doorframe and looked at Peggy with the gentlest of smiles-- one that would have been unbefitting should she not have recognized it from that day at the Griffith when everything came crashing down. Not patronizing, but concerned, radiating quiet confidence. “Sure thing, English.”


	34. "I want to be"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Blanket x Person A gives Person B a book marked with little notes: things they love about Person B. The final note reads: ‘will you marry me?’

Angie ate dinner alone the Wednesday after she and Peggy moved in together. They had a nice routine planned: dinner together Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, promised slots of time for each other on weekends, the whole nine. But before they could settle into it, Peggy slipped out of the penthouse with a hurried “Tomorrow, darling, I promise” one of their dinner-together days and Angie found herself cooking for one.

So the last thing she expected to see slipping down to the kitchen for a late-night glass of water was a light on down the hall.

“Peggy?” Angie hissed into the semi-darkness.

No response.

Considering Peggy’s approximately five thousand warnings about the life she led and all the danger living together could bring, Angie probably should have been more careful when she hurried to the open door.

Preparing for a lowlife dressed all in black to be staring back at her, Angie snatched a candelabra off the side table in the hall before peering into the study.

Instead, she found Peggy, head down on the desk, hand slipping off the edge, snoring like a car engine. Angie’s grip loosened on the candelabra and she breathed a sigh of relief.

Peggy looked decidedly less stiff and agent-ly slumped over a stack of files: her mouth was partly open and a pen lay on the desk beside the hand pillowing her head, and the light from the lamp shone innocently over her tousled hair.

Angie smiled, warmth swelling in her chest. Not for the first time, and even less necessarily now that she knew what Peggy did for a living, she felt overwhelmingly protective of her English. She flicked off the lamp and scribbled a note on a bit of Peggy’s stationary:

_ ‘You’re gonna destroy your neck before the communists, English. _

_ A’ _

Angie was just heading up to her room to check out for the night when she heard a  _ thunk _ and the  _ clack _ of a pen falling on wood.

Pausing halfway up the stairs, she fought a short and ridiculous battle with herself before turning and heading right back down again. She headed directly for the study where she last saw Peggy and found exactly what she expected: Peggy, asleep on her desk. For a brief moment she considered waking her to bring her up to their room, but she and Peggy had been together long enough to know Peggy would just stick out her lip and pout until Angie left her to her mission reports and Angie would hear another  _ thunk _ by the time she managed to get up the stairs.

Peggy’s teacup had tipped over, and the last dregs of her tea were soaking into a manilla folder labelled ‘Evidence.’

Angie quickly scooped up the teacup and yanked a few tissues to dab at the stain. Opening the folder, she caught the words ‘seventeen’ and ‘daybreak’ as she pressed the wad of tissues to the corner of the page.

This time she scribbled:

_ ‘Next time move your tea, I might not always be here to move that very important looking folder out of the way. _

_ A’ _

She was about to slip the note under Peggy’s elbow but stopped. She added:

_ ‘PS _

_ I want to be.’ _

She pressed a kiss to Peggy’s hair and left the room.

Starting with a 7 a.m. shift, then heading to audition, to audition, to dinner with her parents, Angie had had a long day. So it was perfectly reasonable that she should fall asleep on the couch exactly two pages into her next script. She suspected Peggy had given her chamomile tea instead of her regular kind, but the soft and lingering kiss to her forehead had been worth the drowsiness.

When Angie stirred around - she glanced at the grandfather clock by the fireplace - six in the morning, she groaned and rubbed her eyes. Her hand came away smeared with black and her entire face felt tacky-- she’d fallen asleep without washing her face. Another groan thrown in for good measure, Angie threw the blankets off herself and picked up her book from the floor. Something was wedged under the cover. She pulled it out and blinked at the note in her hand.

Alright, fair play, Angie had left her fair share of notes for Peggy over the last year.

The words slowly came into focus, and Angie was pretty sure Peggy was indeed pulling her leg; either that or she was still dreaming.

_ Will you marry me? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this, I've exhausted my pre-written chapters! Updates will be less frequent now because of my schedule and the schedules of the people I'm writing with, but they're still coming! I'll keep you all updated once I nail down a proper posting schedule, and who knows, I might have something else waiting in the wings in the meantime ,':)


	35. "Do you want this?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Ignite x I always thought you were weird for carrying an umbrella in the snow, but now it’s snowing really hard and we’re going the same way
> 
> Smut

Like clockwork each year, when New York’s first snow descended over the city Angie debated moving to California.  _ Snow. _ Who needed it? It was the only thing that earned her a nastier glare than usual from Ms. Fry (beating out rain-soaked boots and suspiciously bottle-shaped paper bags). And her uniform did nothing to help, even bundled under her thickest winter coat.

Angie glared at the puffs of snow drifting down outside the window, whirling bright against the dark street. The cold seeped under the sill and wrapped her up tight. Goosebumps were already developing on her biceps. She glared at them too.

“Hey Mal, turn up the thermostat, will ya’?” she called back to Mal in the kitchen.

“Not unless you’re payin’ for it, chickie,” came Mal’s reply.

She huffed and turned back around, and found herself facing a pair of brown eyes she’d been thinking about all day.

“Not one for the cold then?” Peggy said, red lips poised to smile as she leaned over the counter on her elbows.

“Is anyone?” Angie scoffed, already turning around for the coffee pot. As she turned back to Peggy and matched her pose, she couldn’t help but smile. “You’ve got snow in your hair, English.”

She regretted telling Peggy about it as she moved to brush it off, rosy cheeks and perfect curls lending her the look of a porcelain doll in her winter coat. Flecks of snow decorated her like she was meant to sit in a Christmas window display, hovering like pure light in her dark hair.

Soon enough the water in the coffee pot trickled off behind her and Angie had to tear herself away from her friend. She slid Peggy’s coffee across the counter and leaned forward again, crossing one aching foot over the other.

“You’re in late. The boys at the office keeping you busy?”

Peggy blew out a breath and picked up her coffee cup, holding it right up close to her face. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Aye Martinelli, griddle’s gonna need scrubbing before you go,” Mal barked, emerging from the kitchen with his apron slung over his meaty shoulder.

“Got it, Mal.” Angie angled her shoulders low and made a face in Peggy’s direction, earning a smile from behind her cup. “I would believe it. Let me take care of this and I’ll clock out.”

Peggy nodded and Angie retreated into the kitchen.

She soaped up the griddle sponge and scrubbed until the griddle shone like new. Then she hightailed it to the back room, snatched her coat and purse, and hurried out to meet Peggy, who stood holding her umbrella out in front of her with a patient smile.

“Escorting me home tonight, English?” Angie teased.

“Someone’s got to,” Peggy said, pricking Angie’s little balloon of hope.

Angie only smiled wider. “Way to make a girl feel special.”

“No, I- That wasn’t what I meant,” Peggy spluttered as she pushed open the door into the freezing night.

“Relax, English,” Angie said, nudging Peggy with her elbow and slipping an arm around her waist. It could have been the cold or just her imagination, but she felt Peggy shiver as her hand came to rest on her hip. She couldn’t seem to decide how she wanted to receive Angie’s attempts at flirting, and it made Angie’s head spin.

“I can’t believe you carrying around an umbrella all the time finally paid off,” she said.

Peggy recovered her smile and pulled her hand from around Angie to open her umbrella into an oncoming flurry of snow. ”Old habits I guess.” Old habits indeed. Morose and tempered London must not have prepared her for harsh weather at all because her cheeks were still lightly flushed and growing pinker. Wisps of her hair blew all around her face in the night air and Angie found herself desperately wanting to tuck them back in.

Eyes still lingering on one strand of hair clinging to Peggy’s lips, she started when Peggy’s right arm wrapped around her again. Her hand was so steady around Angie’s waist she suspected that she wouldn’t have to hold onto Peggy to keep herself anchored at all, but she looped her arm around her nonetheless.

Peggy brought the umbrella in between them and invited Angie’s free hand to join hers on the handle.

Her gray woolen scarf, Angie noticed as they started down the street, still smelled of Peggy’s perfume, something tart and sweet suggestive of spiced apple cider and firelight. She shifted closer to Peggy even as it tangled their strides on the slippery sidewalk, fisting her fingers tighter in the fabric of Peggy’s coat. She wanted to bury her nose in the scarf and curl completely around Peggy, trusting her to guide her footsteps completely. Once, the stinging wind forced them to brace the umbrella forward, and she immediately missed the smell.

The walk was short, and when they arrived back at the Griffith they found the lobby empty. Not even Fry was around to suck in her cheeks and wave them upstairs, so Angie suggested they sit by the dying fire and warm themselves.

Peggy agreed, shaking snow out of her hair, and Angie’s mind went blank. Blank and full of Peggy pulling her hair, mussed and falling in damp, loose waves from her coat; unwinding the scarf from around her neck and tossing it over the back of a couch with a breath of relief. The pink had yet to fade from her cheeks.

Angie dimly went through the motions of tugging her arms from her coatsleeves and draping the coat over the coffee table in front of the fire, sitting opposite Peggy on the couch.

Peggy flicked a stray hair from her face and smiled. She had kicked off her heels and sat with her stockinged feet curled up under her, leaning against the armrest.

Her smile dropped for a moment as if she were remembering something she had forgotten long ago. “Angie, did that regular of yours ever come back?” she asked.

“Which one?”

“The one in the suit who always sends back his food.”

Angie frowned. “No, I don’t think I’ve seen him in months. Why?”

“No reason.” Peggy looked sheepish, a rarity for her, and Angie wondered if she was imagining it.

“I don’t believe that for a minute. What gives?”

Peggy bit her lip and released it, her lovely mouth unfurling into a smirk. “I may have threatened him.”

“Sure, I threatened him plenty of times in my head, Peg. What’d you do?”

“Jabbed a fork in his side,” she said airily, avoiding Angie’s eyes.

Angie raised an eyebrow. “You sure that wasn’t in  _ your _ head, English?” Even as she was saying it she didn’t believe it. A picture of Peggy holding a fork tightly so the delicate veins in her hand popped, hissing in the ear of a wide-eyed dope coalesced in her head. She swallowed, glancing down at the hands in question draped delicately over one another; her right elbow propped up on the couch swept downward into the left lying across her stomach. That same right hand with its curved red nails had held her so gently.

She swallowed hard. “When was that?”

“A few months ago. May.”

Angie rose abruptly, suddenly overcome with the need for warmth. A specific kind of warmth elicited by capable hands, which she now knew Peggy’s were. She felt Peggy’s eyes following her as she went to sit closer to the fire.

When she nodded for Peggy to join her, Peggy’s shoulders visibly relaxed. Not for the first time, Angie wondered what was going on in that beautiful head of hers.

The firelight welcomed Peggy as she dropped down beside Angie. Her brown eyes flickered with the glow of the fire like blown glass, wide and smiling with relief. They were crinkled at the corners in a way Angie had rarely seen that made her seem much older than she was, like she’d seen enough horrors to physically age her.

Angie cleared her throat. “What, you thought a fork between the ribs would matter between friends?” she said, trying to keep an edge of bitterness out of her voice. It was a thin line and she had a feeling she was not on the side of it she wanted to be on.

“I thought it might be offputting to you,” Peggy said, shifting to face Angie fully.

“Please. One time my brother came home half-dead after he tried hitting on a girl from the East side. She got him with a meat fork in front of all his buddies. She was still invited to Christmas, so I wouldn’t judge yourself too harshly there, English.”

Peggy laughed, and it sounded like music. She ducked her head down when she laughed, like she was trying to hide it. In that moment, Angie felt like hunting down whoever made Peggy think she had to hide her laugh and strangling them.

When Peggy looked back up at her, there was flickering fire in her eyes. “And you put him right back together again,” she murmured. Those intense eyes bore into Angie’s, igniting her from within. Where their fingertips brushed on the table her hand felt specifically alive.

Peggy’s eyes darted from hers for a second that lasted a year. They roved over the lobby behind Angie’s head and toward the wide windows, shuttered for the night, then somewhere below Angie’s nose.

“I did,” Angie murmured back.

Experimentally it seemed, Peggy’s hand inched toward hers. Curled around her fingers in an unspoken question. Her palm was warm and dry, her fingers sure. Vaguely, Angie registered her free hand trembling.

She met Peggy’s eyes again, and then she too glanced toward the shuttered windows. The light from the fire leapt in Peggy’s hair, soft like it had been painted there. Massaged in with someone’s fingers.

Her fingers raised to Peggy’s hairline. She could feel Peggy’s breath on her wrist as she slowly traced down, reaching Peggy’s ear. When Angie’s hand finally twined in a lock of hair at the base of Peggy’s neck she felt like she might explode. Peggy’s hair was tangled from the wind, and still smelled of her perfume. The light, sweet, spicy scent clouded Angie’s head; overwhelming, and so,  _ so _ Peggy.

“Angie…” Peggy breathed. She could feel it against her own lips.

Was she brave enough to take this risk? Days at the automat crept into her head: serving her regulars, pouring coffee, and eyeing the empty bar stool at the end of the counter waiting for someone who would never return.

Soft lips met hers, and as it turned out she didn’t have to be. Soft, so soft. But it became readily apparent that soft was not enough for Peggy.

She moved forward, untangled their fingers, and a hand found the small of Angie’s back, permitting her to lean into Peggy while the other reached up to cup Angie’s face. Peggy tasted like she smelled: warm, and sweet. The fire Peggy had been stoking with her ardent eyes and questing hands grew and grew-- Angie felt hot all over.

She whimpered into the kiss, and before it had truly begun it was over.

They locked eyes again as they caught their breath, and Peggy murmured, “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to do that.”

“I have some idea,” Angie breathed, wrapping her fingers a little tighter in Peggy’s hair.

“Eight months-”

“A year,” they said at the same time, and laughed lightly.

Angie gave the hair she held a little experimental tug. Peggy rolled her lip into her mouth and bit down, eyes shuddering closed in a way that made Angie’s heart leap into her throat. Her head fell back, exposing that strong vein in her neck. And since Angie didn’t have to pretend she didn’t want to anymore, she pressed a kiss to it, earning a gasp of surprise from Peggy.

“H-here?” Peggy said with difficulty, her throat undulating under Angie’s lips. Her hand fisted in Angie’s hair.

“I don’t see Fry,” Angie said against her skin. She pressed kisses up Peggy’s neck, reaching the soft curve of her ear and giving her earlobe a gentle nip. “Could you imagine?”

Peggy’s hand travelled to the base of Angie’s neck, holding her in place.

“Girls,” Angie said, pitching her voice up into a cracked imitation of Ms. Fry, “What on Earth is going on here?”

Peggy let out a soft moan as Angie bit a little harder, and seemed to have decided it was not indeed worth moving.

“That’s enough of that,” Peggy practically growled, and before Angie could untangle her fingers from Peggy’s hair she was being shoved onto her back on the thin carpet.

Muscular thighs bracketed Angie’s hips and a hand found its way to her face, the other running through the hair at the base of her neck as Angie was tilted into a crushing kiss.

Angie’s hands fumbled for Peggy’s blouse, undoing the first two buttons without effort but finding the task harder and harder the further she had to reach her arms down Peggy’s body. But since she would rather throw herself into the fire than lose Peggy’s fingers in her hair, she hurried through the last few and pushed it over Peggy’s shoulders.

Peggy had to release her anyway to shirk the blouse, but the sight of Peggy perched atop her shrugging out of her shirt was worth it. In fact, Angie found herself quite unable to breathe as Peggy bent low, kissing the underside of Angie’s jaw and granting Angie a generous view of all the parts of her that Angie now found herself cursing her imagination for underrendistimating.

Her blood roared loud in her ears as sure hands lifted Angie’s shoulders up from the floor, indicating for Angie to arch her back so that Peggy could untie the apron at her waist. Heavy breathing met her ears as she pressed closer to Peggy, Peggy’s and her own.

Peggy tossed the apron aside and immediately went to undo the buttons on Angie’s uniform, managing the task with ease compared with Angie’s fumbling; and for a moment Angie felt silly. But then Peggy captured her mouth in a hungry kiss and Angie forgot about it entirely. She bit down on Peggy’s lip, drinking in the sharp gasp she earned in response as Peggy tugged at the hem of Angie’s dress.

They struggled to pull it up for a while, and eventually Peggy had to clamber off her in order to accomplish it. But then Peggy was pulling off Angie’s slip, then her own, and then Angie was really given a view.

Fear that they would be caught shot through her once more, and she tore her eyes from Peggy’s body and around the lobby.

“What?” Peggy said, hooking her fingers around Angie’s brassiere straps and pulling her closer.

Fully flushed against Peggy’s warm body, she was finding it harder and harder to object, but she managed to meet Peggy’s eyes. “Do you want this?” she exhaled softly, hands sliding up to cup Peggy’s face.

Peggy’s mouth quirked up into a smile and for a second she looked like she was going to joke, but taking in the look on Angie’s face her eyebrows fell into a serious line. “I want this,” Peggy said. She ducked in, giving the skin below Angie’s ear a soft kiss. “I want you.” Another kiss. “All of you.”

Angie shivered. “How much?”

“I want to know everything.” Peggy kissed a line down Angie’s skin, finding the junction at her collarbone and shoulder. The soft flesh where arm met breast. Her eyelashes fluttered against Angie’s skin.

Angie moaned softly. She hoped her lipstick would stain.

“I want to know what you sound like,” Peggy said in response, voice heavy. Deft fingers found the eyelet hooks on Angie’s brassiere. She unhooked it and tossed it aside. “I want to know what you look like.” She eased Angie down to the carpet again.

As her body moved further down Angie’s body, Angie became acutely aware of just how much of Peggy was exposed, and of how much warm skin there was still to be found.

Her fingers shot to the clasps at Peggy’s back, but Peggy caught her wrists.

“Not yet,” she cooed. “You first.” Brown eyes met Angie’s, dark with want like Angie assumed her own must be. The sight alone was enough to send electricity through her core.

She groaned into Peggy’s shoulder, and draped her arms over them. Anything for more contact, warm skin, hot lips,  _ anything _ .

Her mouth opened to ask, but Peggy’s mouth found her breast and a moan fell out instead. With the scrape of teeth against sensitive, downright aching skin, Angie knew she was well and truly gone.

“Please,” she gasped, forehead pressed into the curve between Peggy’s neck and shoulder. Her hips lifted and twisted _. Anything. _

Her body jerked and she let out a throaty moan when Peggy’s lips found a nipple. With a sound halfway between a purr and a hiss Peggy hiked Angie’s left leg up to her waist.

Angie gripped Peggy’s back and her breath hitched, finding solid muscle that rippled under her touch as Peggy moved.

“So strong,” she gasped, and the words were lost as teeth joined Peggy’s soft lips, biting gently on her nipple.

Heat washed through her in waves in time with Peggy whispering softly against her skin. Peggy’s hand found her left breast, cupping it as she continued to tease with her mouth.

“Peg-“

Peggy shivered over her and bit down harder. Interesting.

“Peggy,” she said again, gaining just enough control over her faculties to pry open her eyes and watch Peggy’s reaction. She met dark eyes, lidded and staring right into hers. “You- you like when I say your name?”

Peggy, ever better with action than words, twisted Angie’s nipple between her thumb and index finger, and began to suck hard on the other, earning a loud groan from Angie.

“You’re going to have to be quieter than that,” Peggy rasped, accent thick, hands sliding down Angie’s body. “Anyone could come in.”

Angie stifled her next moan as Peggy unclasped her garters and worked her stockings down her legs. There was the warm, wet sensation of Peggy’s lips on the secret skin of her inner thigh. Angie was going to jump out of her skin if Peggy didn’t touch her soon.

But Peggy scratched up with her nails, closer and closer to where Angie needed them the most, and Angie was forced to release Peggy’s shoulder in order to cover her mouth.

As Peggy began dragging Angie’s underwear down her legs, Angie grew conscious of how very exposed they were. If there was a single crack in the blinds, if Gloria came downstairs for a midnight snack, they would be found in a very compromising position.

As it was, Angie couldn’t concentrate on that or on anything else as Peggy’s mouth once again found her breast and her fingers got close, so close.

“Peg-“ Angie gasped around her hand, “Please, English-“

Fingers slid across her, already slick with want, and Angie pressed her hand tighter to her mouth.

“Okay?” Peggy murmured around her nipple, voice quiet, apprehensive almost.

Angie nodded rapidly.

The tips of two fingers pushed her aside, spreading the wetness and pushing against her entrance, and Angie couldn’t help the groan that escaped her.

Peggy waited for Angie to relax around her, then she pushed in. Angie bit down on her thumb as muscles flexed and stretched that hadn’t been used in a long time. It hurt in the most wonderful way, but still she squeezed Peggy’s shoulder with her free hand.

“Slower,” she instructed.

Peggy nodded, her hair brushing Angie’s skin as she did, and her fingers stilled. One hand still holding Angie’s thigh up at her waist, she curled her fingers inside Angie, causing Angie to squirm and her leg to squeeze in.

“Yes, like-“ she bit harder as Peggy started up a steady rhythm. Slowly, so slowly, Peggy began to rock her hips, bracing her hand inside Angie against her thigh as Angie’s hips rolled with hers.

“Peg,” she gasped again, and Peggy’s fingers curled harder, sending a fresh wave of pleasure up her spine.

“Hush,” Peggy snarled, stilling her fingers for a moment that caused Angie to let out a disappointed whine. “Or we can’t continue.”

Angie nodded, and Peggy’s hand uncurled, allowing the heel to bump against the sensitive spot at the apex of Angie’s thighs with each roll of her hips.

She was going to shatter, split at the seams and explode. It was too much: Peggy’s fingers inside her, her shoulder rolling under Angie’s hand, the fire hot on her face, Peggy’s hips canting in a steady rhythm with hers; and she was still rising higher and higher.

She bit down a long groan, the energy instead going into her nails digging into Peggy’s shoulder. Her leg curled around Peggy’s waist as Peggy continued to rock into her. She was going to collapse.

Peggy gasped against Angie’s breast and her next suck fell perfectly into time with her fingers.

Angie gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Do that again,” she panted, and Peggy repeated the motion. She sucked hard on Angie’s breast, hard enough to leave an angry mark as she rolled her hips; and Angie rose up and up.

“ _ Peggy _ ,” she gasped as she hit oblivion, waves of pleasure rolling up her spine and cresting in her core. She felt like screaming, like crying, like singing. And eventually when her hips twitched and she could take no more, Peggy slowed.

Peggy released her breast with a  _ pop _ , and her forehead rested on Angie’s collarbone, her breathing labored.

For a moment they just lay there, Peggy’s fingers still inside Angie, Angie trying to unclench her hand which seemed to be stuck curled around Peggy’s shoulder, breathing.

She could feel the light sheen of sweat on Peggy’s cheek. She had exhausted herself giving Angie everything she had needed for that long year. Peggy’s fingers slowly withdrew, and she wiped them on her own stocking.

“I don’t know if I could survive another round of that,” Angie sighed, letting her head fall back.

“I hope you’re not too tired to get up to your room,” Peggy said, still out of breath.

Angie laughed and gave Peggy’s shoulder a light shove. “Look who’s talking.”

Peggy’s lipstick was fully smeared across her chin. She looked like she’d eaten a cherry popsicle. She was willing to bet her own mouth was smudged with it too, and her breast was indeed peppered with red smears.

They staggered up off the carpet and scooped up their discarded clothes, electing to shrug on their coats and risk running up the stairs with their clothes bundled up in their arms than go through the process of getting dressed again. Eyeing Peggy’s smeared lips and mussed hair, Angie knew she would’ve ripped it all off again anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops up goes the rating


End file.
